HAPPY  HUMANITY 


Photograph  by  Gertrude  Kasebier 

DR.   FREDERIK  VAN  EEDEN 


HAPPY 
HUMANITY 

BY 
DR.  FREDERIK  VAN  EEDEN 


GARDEN  CITY       NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1912 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT    OF    TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE    SCANDINAVIAN 


COPYRIGHT,  igog,  igio,  igii,  igi2,  BY  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE    PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

PART  I.— In  the  Old  World 

I.     Dreams  of  Youth 3 

II.     Poet  and  Doctor 28 

III.  A  Literary  Experiment     ....  50 

IV.  Curing  by  Suggestion        ....  64 
V.     The  Influence  of  Some  Friends       .        .  82 

VI.     The  Great  Strike 91 

VII.     The  Breakdown 117 

PART  II.—  In  the  New  World 

I.     The  Scheme  for  America .       .       .       .  141 
II.     Co-production:  Its  Moral  Motives  and 

Results 153 

III.  What  I  Said  to  the  American  People   .  176 

IV.  What  I  Said  to  American  Business  Men  195 
V.     A  Lay  Sermon  on  the  Plain.    "What  I 

Would  Say  to  the  Average  American 

Reader" 208 

VI.     Conclusion 229 

Appendix  I 251 

Appendix  II 259 

242403 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  following  pages  want  some  apology. 
They  are  autobiographical  in  a  degree  not 
corresponding  with  my  intention  nor 
justified  by  the  eventfulness,  the  adventurousness, 
the  narrative  importance  of  my  life.  Yet,  as  the 
editors  of  this  book  kindly  suggested,  they  may 
have  a  value  and  an  interesting  quality,  by  showing 
how  private  events  brought  me  to  my  present  at- 
titude and  convictions.  I  tell  these  individual 
particulars  reluctantly,  for  what  really  is  of  worth 
and  value  is  only  their  general  significance.  Things 
personal  are  bound  to  vanish,  and  the  less  attention 
we  pay  them  the  better,  and  in  telling  this  story  I 
beg  to  observe  that  I  do  not  think  my  facts  im- 
portant in  themselves  but  only  instructive  in  show- 
ing the  influence  that  outward  and  personal  events 
exist  on  our  inward  struggle  for  light,  for  freedom, 
and  for  universality. 


Vll 


PART  I 
IN  THE  OLD  WORLD 


CHAPTER  I 

DREAMS    OF    YOUTH 

HOLLAND,  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  was  in  a  peculiar  condition.  It 
had  gone  over  heights  of  wealth  and  glory, 
and  through  depths  of  misery  and  humiliation;  it 
had  seen  its  commerce  ruined  by  England;  it  had 
been  brutally  bullied  and  exploited  by  Napoleon; 
it  had  lost  its  fleet,  its  colonies,  its  influence;  it  had 
seen  the  houses  of  its  towns  stand  empty,  and  the 
number  of  its  subsidized  paupers  increased  terribly. 
Only  by  the  grace  of  mightier  powers  it  had  been 
put  upon  its  legs  again,  and  established  as  a  "buf- 
ferstate"  between  Germany  and  England.  It  had 
all  the  qualities  of  an  old  man  rumbling  and  musing 
over  the  vicissitudes  of  life,  sneering  mildly  at  the 
hopes  and  illusions  of  younger  people.  Its  patriot- 
ism, though  still  alive  and  kept  up  in  a  formal  and 
rhetorical  way,  had  a  sour  taste  of  skepticism  in  it; 
its  great  art  seemed  lost  and  it  considered  the  in- 
terest of  the  foreigner  principally  from  the  lu- 
crative sides  after  the  manner  of  the  old  peasant 
that  welcomes  the  pedler  who  is  interested  in  his 

3 


4  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

crockery  and  china;  its  architecture  was  a  horrid 
imitation  of  Italian  Renaissance;  its  literature  had 
for  its  best  quality  a  mild  and  gentle  irony,  a  pro- 
vincial humour. 

Then,  in  the  sixties,  we  woke  up.  The  revival 
was  due  largely  to  the  pushing  influence  of  the 
powerfully  rising  antagonist  of  France  and  England 
—  the  great  "Hinterland,"  Germany.  We  were 
in  the  way  of  Germany  in  her  path  to  the  sea, 
and  we  had  to  stir,  whether  we  wanted  to  or 
not. 

This  waking  up  was  anticipated,  however,  by  a 
hidden  and  unnoticed  revival  of  our  special  art, 
the  art  of  painting.  We  had  our  splendid  artistic 
dreams  just  before  we  woke  up  at  a  new  daybreak. 
A  group  of  mighty  painters,  the  brothers  Maris, 
Anton  Mauve,  Jozef  Israels,  began  their  work,  and 
in  the  sixties  had  already  made  their  masterpieces, 
although  their  fame  was  not  established  before  the 
end  of  the  century. 

Now,  when  we  consider  the  progress  of  architec- 
ture over  the  whole  world,  it  seems  as  if  the  low 
watermark  of  taste  was  reached  about  that  time 
in  all  countries.  The  time  of  the  second  French 
Empire,  the  time  of  the  crinoline,  was  also  the 
period  in  which  the  ugliest  buildings  ever  made  by 
human  hand  were  erected  in  Europe  and  America. 
Then  by  some  mysterious  reason  the  pendulum 
swung  back  and  another  Renaissance  began. 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  5 

What  we  had  to  struggle  for  in  Holland  was  to 
get  out  of  provincialism  and  narrow,  self-satisfied 
dulness,  to  return  into  the  great  universal  current 
of  life;  we  did  not  recognize  real  art  when  we  saw  it. 

When  I  was  born  the  great  masterpieces  of  my 
famous  townsman,  Frans  Hals,  now  the  principal 
pride  of  Haarlem,  had  just  been  recovered  from  the 
mould  and  dust  of  some  dark  attic,  where  they  had 
been  lying  —  rolled  up,  if  you  please  —  for  about 
a  century,  as  worthless  rags.  Most  striking  it  is  to 
observe  that  Jozef  Israels,  the  Nestor  of  modern 
Dutch  painters,  who  is  over  eighty  now,  and  still 
vigorously  working,  had  to  go  through  a  very 
long  struggle  before  he  could  break  the  bonds  of 
conventionalism  and  bad  taste,  reach  artistic  free- 
dom, and  become  the  man  of  world-wide  renown 
he  is  now. 

It  was  hard  and  painful  work  to  get  out  of  the 
mire  of  dulness,  laxity,  and  complacency  in  which 
we  struggled.  My  whole  life  up  to  this  day  has 
been  one  long  and  difficult  progress  from  provincial- 
ism to  universality,  carried  on  in  the  hope  of  sharing 
the  renewed  vitality  of  the  human  race  of  this  most 
eventful  and  significant  age. 

As  a  nation  we  were  not  poor.  We  had  been 
humiliated  and  impoverished,  but  we  had  still  some 
sources  of  wealth  left;  there  was  Java  of  our  colonies; 
and  there  was  interest  on  the  money  we  had  lent 
to  foreigners.  We  were  not  penniless  —  but  worse, 


6  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

we  were  a  nation  of  a  few  well-to-do  rentiers  and  of 
many  paupers  living  by  charity.  Rich  and  poor 
were  satisfied  in  their  lot,  and  had  lost  all  inclina- 
tion for  improvement. 

When  you  come  to  my  native  town,  Haarlem,  the 
most  curious  things  to  see  —  besides  the  paintings 
of  Hals  —  are  the  so-called  Hofies.  Hofies  are  chari- 
table institutions  founded  by  some  wealthy  donor 
who  gave  his  name  to  the  foundation,  as  a  sure  way 
to  gain  salvation  in  Heaven,  and  a  long  and  hon- 
oured reputation  on  earth.  Poor  old  people  live 
there  in  neat  little  ivy-covered  mansions  grouped 
round  a  quiet  green  square  where  there  are  flowers 
and  a  well.  There  were  more  than  twenty  of  these 
"havens  of  rest"  in  Haarlem  when  I  was  a  boy. 
I  like  to  think  of  the  picturesque  quiet,  the  atmos- 
phere of  pensive  peacefulness  of  these  secluded 
squares,  where  old  women  with  their  pussies  on 
the  floor  beside  them,  and  their  canaries  hanging 
in  the  windows,  looked  on  the  rare  visitor  from 
behind  their  well-scoured  panes. 

Around  Haarlem,  flower-growing  has  become  at 
this  day  a  most  prosperous  trade,  extending  rapidly, 
and  bringing  in  millions  of  dollars.  For  generations 
my  ancestors  had  been  florists  and  at  the  time  of 
my  birth  my  grandfather  held  the  estate  owned  now 
by  the  well-known  firm  Krelage  &  Son.  He  was 
representative  of  the  condition  of  his  trade  and  of 
his  country  at  the  time. 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  7 

He  was  rather  well-off  and  had  no  cares.  He 
was  a  modest,  mild,  gentle,  humorous  man  with  a 
considerable  literary  talent  and  no  sense  of  business 
at  all.  He  loved  his  hyacinths  and  his  tulips,  but 
especially  his  dahlias,  which  were  then  called 
Georginas  —  and  his  great  delight  was  not  to  sell 
them  at  a  good  price,  but  to  sit  among  them  on  a 
sunny  day  to  muse  and  smoke. 

He  left  us  many  unpublished  volumes  of  drama 
and  poetry,  all  written  out  by  himself  in  clear  and 
neat  handwriting,  without  a  mistake  or  correction. 
Moreover,  he  left  the  estate  in  a  very  low  condition. 
In  his  narrow,  timid,  tender  frame  of  mind  he 
educated  his  children  timidly  and  sentimentally. 
My  father,  his  only  son,  was  allowed  no  sport,  no 
physical  exercise;  he  could  not  swim,  or  ride,  or 
skate  for  fear  it  would  hurt  his  constitution.  For 
when  all  incentive  for  progress  and  development  is 
stifled  by  the  quiet  and  comfort  of  a  contem- 
plative life,  what  is  the  use  of  running  risks, 
courting  dangers,  and  exposing  your  health?  My 
grandfather  felt  no  terror  of  the  abyss  of  dulness 
and  provincialism  into  which  he  and  his  race  were 
slowly  sinking. 

In  my  father,  however,  the  spark  of  life  and  energy 
began  to  scintillate  again.  The  worst  thing  I  can 
say  of  him  is  that  he  had  not  the  quality  of  heroism. 
If  he  had  possessed  it,  he  would  have  been  one  of  the 
great  men  of  his  country,  even  of  the  world.  For 


8  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

he  was  an  extremely  clever  man,  a  profound  and 
original  thinker,  a  well-known  scientist,  a  good 
author,  and,  moreover,  a  practical  and  energetic 
worker. 

To  those  who  knew  him  superficially  his  sense 
of  humour  was  his  prominent  quality.  His  sar- 
castic irony,  his  Voltairean  spirit,  made  his  con- 
versation so  brilliant  and  paradoxical  that  many 
even  of  our  respectable  Dutchmen  did  not  take  him 
seriously.  His  professed  human  ideal  was  the 
"laughing  philosopher,"  and  he  founded  a  club 
called  the  "Democritus,"  in  which  every  member 
had  always  to  speak  in  rhyme;  the  greatest  nonsense 
was  most  appreciated,  provided  there  was  wit  in  it. 
All  worldly  events,  no  matter  how  serious,  were 
there  matters  for  jokes  and  farcical  poems.  My 
father's  study  as  it  is  still  left  piously  untouched 
showed  an  almost  incredible  collection  of  cartoons, 
masks,  caricatures,  and  funny  bric-a-brac. 

Yet  this  passionate  jester  possessed  a  deeply 
earnest  and  religious  mind.  He  discovered  the 
merits  of  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche  long  before 
their  works  were  known  in  their  own  country,  and 
he  entered  into  correspondence  with  both  phi- 
losophers. He  was  a  great  reader  and  admirer  of 
Plato,  Lucretius,  Spinoza,  and  of  the  religious 
mystic,  Madame  de  la  Motte-Guyon.  His  fa- 
vourite book  was  that  old  treasure  of  oriental  wis- 
dom: Bhagavad-Githa.  He  was  the  real  free- 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  9 

thinker,  able  to  find  the  pold  of  {pith  in  tfre  ore  of 
every  religion. 

From  a  bulb-grower  he  became  a  botanist.  He 
had  a  disdain  for  all  cultivated  plants,  which  he 
called  coarse,  gaudy,  pretentious,  strong-scented 
things,  bred  to  suit  the  taste  of  vulgar  and  com- 
monplace people;  and  he  turned  all  his  love  and 
interest  to  the  wild  plants  of  his  country,  the 
"weeds,"  as  he  called  them.  He  wrote  the  Flora 
Batava,  a  compendium  of  all  our  native  plants,  and 
a  manual  of  popular  botany,  called  "Weeds,"  which 
is  still  read  all  over  Holland,  besides  other  scientific 
and  philosophical  writings. 

In  the  meantime  he  did  good  practical  work 
for  the  welfare  of  his  country,  and  was  especially 
interested  in  our  large  colonies.  "Holland  has 
forty  million  inhabitants,"  he  used  to  say,  refer- 
ring to  the  population  of  Java,  "and  a  grave 
under  the  palms  is  better  than  a  useless  life  at 
home." 

What  he  did  was  a  great  advance  on  the  ancestral 
laxity.  Privately  he  made  a  large  collection  of 
colonial  products,  armory,  and  works  of  art,  which 
formed  the  foundation  of  what  has  now  become  the 
National  Colonial  Institute.  He  started  also  a 
museum  for  applied  art,  with  a  school  attached  to 
it;  he  was  the  first  to  introduce  the  Scandinavian 
Sloyd,  the  educational  manual  work,  from  Sweden 
into  Holland;  and  he  did  all  he  could  to  further  the 


io  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

scientific  exploration  of  our  neglected  American 
possession,  Surinam. 

My  father  did  not  like  his  contemporaries,  though 
he  did  so  much  for  their  benefit.  He  loved  nature 
passionately  and  sneered  sarcastically  at  man. 
"Man  is  a  blot  on  nature,"  he  said.  "Look  at  his 
build.  Did  you  ever  see  such  a  clumsy  arrange- 
ment? Everything  hung  up  on  a  spinal  cord,  like 
an  umbrella-stand  with  a  top-heavy  globe  upper- 
most. A  perfect  being  ought  to  be  spherical." 
And  then  he  made  funny  drawings  of  a  society  of 
globular  beings.  One  of  his  last  sayings  was  a  grim 
Voltairean  joke  at  the  expense  of  man:  "The 
creator  made  an  awful  blundering  mess  of  human- 
ity," he  said,  "  and  if  I  happen  to  meet  him,  you  may 
be  sure  I  will  tell  him  so  straight  to  his  face." 

My  first  years  were  spent  at  the  bulb  farm,  in  a 
long  one-storied  house  just  outside  the  gate  of 
Haarlem.  There  was  then  still  a  real  mediaeval 
gate,  which  was  shut  at  nine  in  the  evening.  I 
remember  how  we  used  to  hurry  out  from  town  to 
get  there  before  nine;  for  otherwise  we  had  to  pay 
a  penny  to  the  gate-keeper  for  opening  the  door. 

The  farm  was  a  delicious  place  for  a  dreamy, 
romantic  sort  of  child.  The  endless  square  beds  of 
gayly  coloured  fragrant  flowers,  the  long  airy  barns 
where  the  bulbs,  laid  out  to  dry,  spread  their  pe- 
culiar pungent  smell;  the  hothouses,  the  orchard  — 
it  was  a  little  world  full  of  interest  and  wonder. 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  n 

Haarlem  is  situated  on  what  is  called  in  Holland 
a  "river,"  though  I  could  never  tell  in  which  direc- 
tion the  water  is  flowing.  We,  like  other  respectable 
families,  had  a  little  tea-house  on  the  border  of  that 
river,  whereto  we  went  on  Saturday  afternoons.  I 
can  still  see  our  little  procession,  father,  mother,  and 
the  two  boys  carrying  baskets  with  victuals,  fol- 
lowed by  the  family  cat  with  tail  erect.  There  on 
the  riverside  we  drank  tea,  plucked  raspberries,  and 
enjoyed  life,  I  do  not  remember  exactly  how.  But 
everything  was  eminently  peaceful  and  provincial. 

My  father  with  his  philosopher's  disdain  for  bus- 
iness and  commercialism,  and  his  botanical  con- 
tempt for  cultivated  flowers,  soon  sold  the  farm 
and  removed  to  a  spacious,  old-fashioned  house  in 
town.  Rural  life,  to  my  great  regret,  was  at  an  end, 
and  I  have  hated  town-life  ever  since.  My  father 
took  me  with  him  on  his  botanical  excursions  around 
Haarlem;  and  in  the  woods  and  parks  of  private 
country-seats,  and  especially  in  the  uncultivated 
dunes  between  the  town  and  the  sea,  we  had  our 
dreams  of  unspoiled  nature. 

To  an  American  our  wilderness  would  seem  but  a 
small  area,  but  to  my  father  and  me  it  was  a  whole 
world  of  savage  and  lovely  scenery.  We  had  our 
Switzerland  there,  with  her  lakes  and  mountains  to 
explore,  and  we  knew  the  spots  where  rare  flowers 
grew.  And  my  father's  boyish  delight,  his  real 
ecstasy,  in  discovering  a  new  plant,  or  in  the  punctual 


12  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

reappearance  of  an  expected  flower  at  some  secret 
spot  known  only  to  us,  was  a  thing  never  to  be 
forgotten. 

There  and  then,  like  him,  I  began  to  love  nature 
above  humanity.  This  wonderful  distinction  be- 
tween the  totality  of  animals  and  plants,  including 
earth  and  sea  and  sun  and  stars,  which  we  call 
"Nature,"  and  which  is  always  beautiful  and 
sympathetic  even  in  its  cruelty  and  inexorableness, 
and  that  particular  and  so  much  less  sympathetic 
animal  which  we  call  man  was  a  puzzle  to  me  from 
my  earliest  years.  I  questioned  my  father  constantly 
and  he  answered  patiently  as  best  he  could.  I  es- 
pecially remember  his  hardly  perceptible  smile,  im- 
mediately subdued  in  order  not  to  hurt  my  childish 
pride,whenl,aboyof  ten,  walking  hand  in  hand  with 
him,  started  the  conversation  in  this  way:  "Now, 
father,  let  us  talk  again  on  nature  and  humanity." 

In  fact,  I  did  not  like  towns,  nor  schools  —  which 
were  then  indeed,  by  some  incomprehensible  or- 
dinance, the  barest,  ugliest,  most  unattractive 
buildings  in  town.  I  did  not  like  my  fellow  man. 
Of  course  I  had  my  class  chum,  and,  earlier,  my 
sweetheart;  but  these  were  glorious  exceptions,  and, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  cruel  deceptions  also.  To  all 
other  human  creatures  I  felt  very  strange,  like  an 
exile  among  foreigners,  and  I  was  aware  that  this 
was  my  father's  feeling  also.  But  where  he  laughed 
and  jested  and  sneered,  I  felt  more  inclined  to  kick 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  13 

and  cry.  It  was  to  me  a  serious  puzzle  of  sad  and 
mysterious  significance;  it  was  no  matter  for  amuse- 
ment at  all. 

I  found  man  coarse,  vulgar,  brutal,  and  eminently 
ugly.  There  was  no  self-conceit  or  self-elation  in 
this  feeling;  I  did  not  consider  myself  an  exception 
and  was  not  at  all  conscious  of  being  finer  than  they. 
But  my  feelings  were  hurt  by  the  individuals  of  my 
own  race,  constantly,  and  I  could  not  help  it. 

Perhaps  all  this  will  be  called  morbid.  But  here 
I  beg  the  kind  reader  to  consider.  Morbidity  is 
a  deviation  from  the  healthy,  normal  constitution 
of  man.  Ought  a  healthy,  normal  human  being 
to  be  vulgar,  coarse,  egotistic,  dirty,  uncivilized, 
dull,  ugly?  And  if  not,  is  it  then  a  token  of  mor- 
bidity to  be  very  keenly  conscious  of  these  defects  ? 
Will  not  the  healthy  mind  be  more  keenly  aware 
of  them  than  the  unhealthy?  Compare  mankind 
with  any  other  race.  Take  wild  flowers  or  animals 
-  take  violets,  rabbits,  sea-gulls,  swallows,  butter- 
flies. All  are  subject  to  diseases.  But  out  of  every 
thousand  individuals,  how  many  will  you  find  ab- 
normal, deformed?  Hardly  a  dozen.  Every  moth, 
every  fly,  is  perfection  in  its  kind. 

And  now  look  at  man.  You  will  find  the  pro- 
portion exactly  reversed.  How  many  out  of  a  thou- 
sand are  well-formed,  beautiful,  noble-minded,  gen- 
erous, wise,  honest,  high-spirited?  How  many  are 
perfection  in  their  kind? 


i4  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Human  perfection  means  more,  is  more  difficult 
to  reach,  you  will  say.  Very  well,  but  we  were  talk- 
ing of  morbidity  —  i.e.,  abnormality,  deviation  from 
the  healthy.  You  know  Luther  Burbank,  the  great 
breeder,  the  improver  of  races,  the  creator  of  new 
forms.  Suppose  we  came  to  him  with  a  race  in  the 
same  condition  as  mankind  in  its  present  stage,  and 
asked  him  to  improve  it  —  what  would  he  have 
to  do? 

The  answer  is  clear.  He  would  have  to  select 
and  to  destroy  —  destroy,  destroy,  kill,  burn,  stamp 
out  —  just  as  he  did  with  millions  of  weeds.  Out 
of  every  thousand  he  would  have  to  select  a  dozen, 
perhaps  one  or  two,  and  destroy  the  rest.  He  would 
select  the  well-built,  the  beautiful  of  countenance, 
the  high-minded,  the  noble-spirited  —  and  from 
these  few  he  would  breed  a  new  race.  Then  we 
should  see  for  the  first  time  a  really  healthy  human- 
ity. We  should  see  undreamed  wonders  of  mate- 
rial prosperity  united  with  spiritual  elevation  and 
brotherly  love,  we  should  see  the  kingdom  of  God 
remarkably  close  by.  For  this  is  our  latest  scien- 
tific discovery  in  the  matter  of  heredity  and  breed- 
ing, that  a  race  can  be  improved  only  from  the 
inside  • —  that  is  to  say,  not  by  improving  outer  con- 
ditions for  a  great  many,  but  by  breeding  carefully 
from  a  few  select  parents. 

Of  course  I  do  not  advocate  this  wholesale  de- 
struction as  a  practical  measure.  It  would  offer 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  15 

some  difficulties,  and  would  find  much  opposition, 
especially  in  a  democratic  age  like  ours.  We  have 
to  trust  in  the  final  efficacy  of  a  much  longer,  round- 
about method,  consisting  principally  of  education, 
self-control,  and  self-insight. 

But  I  wanted  to  point  out  that  morbidity  must 
not  be  spoken  of  where  there  is  incipient  recovery. 
For  self-insight,  consciousness  of  disease,  is  the  first 
condition  for  restoration  of  health 

I  might  have  been  called  "morbid"  if  my  sen- 
sitiveness had  led  me  to  bitter  despair  and  hate.  If 
I  had  become  an  enemy  of  society,  if  I  had  become 
a  monk,  a  hermit,  a  crank,  an  anarchist,  an  apache, 
a  cambrioleur,  a  robber,  a  tramp,  or  a  burglar,  I 
might  with  justice  have  been  accused. 

As  I  grew  older,  I  began  to  disagree  with  my 
father  because  of  his  light-hearted,  jocular  way  of 
taking  such  a  serious  matter  as  life.  Here  came 
in  some  qualities  of  my  maternal  ancestry.  My 
mother  was  descended  from  an  old  Dutch  family 
that  counted  many  clergymen  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
formed Church  among  its  members.  Her  own  father 
was  a  tall,  earnest,  sturdy  preacher.  Her  brother, 
a  man  of  the  same  stamp,  went  to  South  Africa  as 
a  clergyman  and  was  the  only  preacher  of  the  Trans- 
vaal who  responded  at  the  call  of  the  insurgent 
Boers,  and  joined  the  meeting  at  Paardekraal  where 
war  was  declared  against  England  in  1880,  Decem- 
ber 1 2th.  Another  of  her  brothers  went  to  Java  as 


16  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

a  soldier,  and  was  wounded  and  won  the  cross  in  the 
war  against  the  Balinese.  I  remember  my  pride 
in  his  beautiful  uniform;  I  remember  his  scarred, 
martial,  sunburned  face  when  he  came  home  on 
furlough.  And  I  remember  my  despair  a  few  months 
later,  when  I  ran  across  the  street  crying  and  sob- 
bing loudly,  in  order  to  tell  my  poor  grandmother 
the  sad  news,  just  arrived,  that  he  was  shot  and 
killed. 

I  was  born  a  philosopher  like  my  father,  but  be- 
cause of  my  inheritance  from  my  mother  I  did  not 
want  to  be  only  a  laughing  philosopher,  I  wanted 
to  be  a  fighting  one. 

When  asked  what  my  profession  would  be,  my 
answer  was:  "poet  and  painter."  My  father  used 
to  amuse  the  family,  or  rather  to  amuse  himself, 
at  the  cost  of  the  family,  by  making  facetious  rhymes 
at  every  festive  occasion  or  gathering.  And  I  was, 
at  an  early  age,  considered  a  worthy  successor  in 
his  quality  as  a  family  rhymer.  Drawing  carica- 
tures and  landscapes  was  my  favourite  occupation. 
Yet  I  never  thought  of  these  activities  as  a  means 
of  "making  a  living." 

Money-getting  was  a  thing  that  did  not  enter 
much  into  our  conversation  or  our  thoughts.  My 
parents  lived  extremely  simply  and  soberly  —  rather 
too  primitively  as  it  seems  to  me  now.  Money- 
matters  were  not  considered  interesting.  There 
was  a  spirit  of  thrift,  especially  in  my  mother, 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  17 

but  that  of  accumulation  seemed  absent.  When 
my  love  for  nature  and  natural  science  awoke,  I 
wished  to  become  a  zoologist.  And,  in  imitation  of 
my  father,  I  made  collections  of  beetles,  butter- 
flies, shells,  birds'  eggs,  and  other  naturalia. 

During  the  fourteenth  year  of  my  life  I  was 
unable  to  read  or  write,  because  of  a  painful  disease 
of  the  eyes,  which  obliged  me  to  stay  in  a  dark  room. 
I  spent  that  year  quite  patiently  shut  off  from  the 
world,  dictating  verses  to  my  mother  and  dream- 
ing. With  all  its  physical  suffering,  this  year  is 
not  at  all  unpleasant  in  my  memory. 

When  I  recovered,  I  began  to  raise  silkworms 
as  an  occupation  that  needed  no  exertion  of  the 
eyes.  Soon  I  filled  the  spacious  attic  of  our  house 
with  large,  low,  open  wooden  boxes  in  which  my 
thousands  of  cream-white  caterpillars  gnawed  their 
mulberry  leaves;  and  I  was  busy  the  whole  day  in 
keeping  them  clean  and  in  collecting  their  daily 
food  from  all  the  mulberry  trees  I  could  reach  in  or 
near  Haarlem.  When  you  entered  the  room  the 
sound  of  their  voracious  feeding  was  like  a  summer 
rain  on  the  foliage.  Then  thousands  of  little  paper 
boxes  had  to  be  made  and  hung  up  on  strings,  and 
the  worms,  as  they  became  ready  to  spin,  were 
selected  and  housed  to  let  them  make  their  cocoons. 
I  had  the  satisfaction  to  get  a  prize  medal  for  my 
home-made  silk. 

To  complete  the  cure  of  my  eyes  I  went  to  a  Ger- 


i8  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

man  watering-place.  And  there  I  came  in  touch 
with  English  people.  I  have  a  suspicion  that  some 
of  my  Anglo-Saxon  readers,  when  I  expressed  my 
juvenile  dissatisfaction  with  humanity,  said  some- 
thing like  this:  "Of  course,  poor  boy!  to  be  born 
and  bred  among  Dutchmen!  not  the  right  place, 
indeed,  for  learning  to  admire  humanity!  How 
different  it  would  all  have  been  to  him  if  he  had 
been  born  in  England  —  or  at  least  in  some  Anglo- 
Saxon  country." 

In  fact,  when  I  had  made  my  first  English  friends, 
and  had  seen  English  children,  who  happened  to 
be  remarkably  pretty,  I  began  to  reconsider  my 
verdict  on  humanity.  If  there  existed  a  country 
where  such  lovely  and  graceful  beings  were  the  rule, 
and  where  the  plain  and  vulgar  ones  were  the 
exception,  then  I  felt  I  could  live  there  and  be  happy. 
Gladly  I  would  prefer  their  company  to  that  of  my 
school  friends  and  my  caterpillars. 

I  decided  to  go  to  England  and  have  a  look  at 
English  people  and  a  taste  of  the  English  hospitality 
that  was  kindly  offered  me  by  my  new  friends. 
The  necessity  to  get  money  for  my  passage  to  Lon- 
don aroused  in  me  an  atavistic  renewal  of  the  an- 
cestral business  capacity.  I  sold  a  watch  chain 
for  outlay  capital  and  started  at  once  a  little 
trade  in  soap,  buying  it  from  a  factory  and 
selling  it  to  friends  and  relations.  In  a  few 
weeks  I  had  what  I  wanted  —  I  think  about 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  19 

forty  dollars  —  and  I  went  to  England.  After 
the  goal  was  reached,  the  soap  business  collapsed 
at  once  and  for  good. 

I  have  my  doubts  whether  it  is  needless  to  say 
that  I  did  not  find  Happy  Humanity  in  Great 
Britain  and  returned  home  disappointed.  What 
struck  me  most  in  England  was  not  the  healthier 
race  and  the  finer  human  individuals  —  though 
these  were  surely  more  conspicuous  there  than  in 
my  own  degraded  fatherland  —  but  the  intense  self- 
complacency,  the  general  feeling  of  racial  superi- 
ority, the  want  of  insight  into  defects  of  their  own 
which  were  just  as  bad  as  those  of  other  nations. 
London  seemed  to  me  a  terrible  place,  gloomy, 
dingy,  dark  and  melancholy,  notwithstanding  its 
grand  aspects,  its  vigorous  life,  its  sporadic  beauty. 
Compared  to  clean,  neat,  bright  little  Holland,  with 
its  transparant  air  and  its  gayly  coloured  houses, 
London  seemed  little  better  than  Niflheim,  the 
Scandinavian  Hell.  And  yet  this  same  city  of 
gloom,  fog  and  squalor,  of  horrid  poverty  side  by 
side  with  reckless  luxury,  was  considered  by  its 
inhabitants  a  wonderful  production  and  a  proof  of 
human  greatness  and  power.  At  the  home  of  my 
English  friends,  who  were  orthodox  high-church 
people,  I  had  my  first  taste  of  that  terrible  spirit 
of  religious  formality  that  lays  particular  stress  on 
reading  the  Bible  at  all  possible  hours  of  the  day, 
fit  or  unfit,  with  or  without  understanding,  on  sing- 


20  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

ing  hymns  and  being  bored  in  church,  and  on  doing 
nothing  and  looking  dull  on  Sundays. 

Being  educated  without  any  spiritual  com- 
pulsion I  had  never  understood  until  that  time  the 
bitter  invectives  of  a  poet  like  Lucretius  against 
religion.  After  my  visit  to  England  I  felt  the 
meaning  of  that  line  so  often  quoted  by  my  father: 

Tantum  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum. 

I  had  seen  how  the  minds  of  these  pretty  and 
graceful  English  children  were  twisted  and  cor- 
rupted by  the  petrified  dogmas  of  a  lifeless  faith, 
how  they  were  taught  to  consider  themselves  as 
belonging  to  the  elect  because  they  followed  mean- 
ingless prescriptions  and  repeated  things  they  could 
not  understand.  I  had  seen  the  pure,  simple 
spirit  of  the  genuine  Christian  faith  turned  into  a 
narrow,  harsh,  forbidding  doctrine.  I  saw  the 
message  of  Jesus,  meant  as  a  liberation,  used  as  a 
means  for  spiritual  slavery. 

When  I  was  sixteen,  my  bodily  eyes  being  healed 
and  my  spiritual  soul's  eyes  beginning  to  open,  I 
entered  the  lists,  determined  to  fight  for  Happy 
Humanity. 

At  that  time  my  favourite  authors  were  Heine  and 
our  Dutch  poet-freethinker  Multatuli.  I  refused  to 
become  a  member  of  any  church,  though  all  my 
family,  and  even  my  father,  wanted  me  to  do  so. 
They  tempted  me  to  do  as  they  wished  by  the 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  21 

promise  of  a  gold  watch  and  chain.  But  I  said: 
Fade  retro!  and  have  worn  a  silver  one  until  this  day. 

I  never  was  a  materialist,  however,  and  my  first 
dramatic  production  was  a  fantastic  comedy  — 
influenced  by  the  reading  of  Aristophanes  —  in 
which  I  showed  an  "Empire  of  the  learned"  founded 
by  a  very  clever  professor  on  an  uninhabited 
island.  There  everything  was  done  scientifically 
and  mathematically;  Logic  and  Reason  were  the 
only  Gods;  Sentiment  was  not  allowed  unless 
rationally  justified,  and  the  Founder  and  Ruler  of 
the  Empire  had  a  right  to  submit  every  citizen  to 
an  instantaneous  examination  concerning  the  sound- 
ness of  his  scientific  knowledge  and  principles.  Of 
course  the  Deus  ex  Machina  whom  I  introduced  was 
Amor.  Love  proved  stronger  than  Reason,  and 
at  the  moment  when  the  Learned  Tyrant  invited 
one  of  his  female  subjects  to  write  down  at  once 
the  formula  for  maternal  Love,  after  a  glowing 
speech  by  the  insurgent  woman,  rebellion  broke 
out.  The  play  was  never  performed  and  was  of 
course  only  a  juvenile  attempt.  At  this  present 
moment,  however,  thirty  three  years  after  I  wrote 
it,  it  seems  to  me  not  at  all  out  of  date. 

Life  began  now  to  show  me  its  tragic  side.  A 
friend  of  our  home,  whom  we  all  liked,  and  whose 
merry  company  I  particularly  enjoyed,  was  found 
by  me  in  his  room  with  a  bullet  in  his  head  and  the 
pistol  in  his  hand. 


22  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

A  school  friend  of  mine,  a  few  years  older  than  I, 
who  studied  medicine  at  the  Amsterdam  University, 
fell  ill.  I  went  to  his  room  and  nursed  him  for  some 
weeks,  until  he  died  of  consumption.  He  lived  in 
a  back  room  in  one  of  the  poorest  streets  of  Amster- 
dam; and  for  me,  accustomed  to  the  life  in  nature, 
among  woods  and  dunes  and  the  beautiful  country 
around  Haarlem,  this  stay  in  the  dingy  boarding- 
house,  in  the  dull  street,  with  the  sad  company  of 
my  dying  friend,  was  the  depth  of  gloom  and  mel- 
ancholy. Surely  life  was  not  a  matter  for  jokes 
and  amusement. 

Instead  of  becoming  a  poet  and  a  painter,  I 
resolved  to  be  a  doctor.  To  my  mind,  mankind 
seemed  to  be  more  in  need  of  doctors  than  of  poets 
and  painters.  I  was  mistaken  there,  as  I  have 
come  to  see  after  a  long  and  troublesome  experience, 
but  the  mistake  seems  to  be  still  pretty  general. 
No  doubt  there  is  something  the  matter  with  human- 
ity, but  doctors  will  never  cure  it.  At  least  not  the 
ordinary  doctors  as  they  are  now. 

Yet  I  shall  never  regret  the  scientific  education 
I  got  at  the  University  of  Amsterdam.  For  a  poet, 
of  all  men,  it  is  most  desirable  to  acquire  a  scientific 
spirit.  Rationalistic  science  at  our  days  may  be 
only  a  poor  guide  in  active  life;  the  ethics  of  science, 
however,  its  impersonality,  its  freedom  from  all 
lower  bias,  its  humble  submission  to  truth,  its  un- 
selfish perseverance  in  one  great  common  endeavour 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  23 

—  all  this  is  pure  blessing  for  the  human  mind,  and 
it  is  too  often  neglected  by  the  emotional  poet  or 
man  of  action. 

It  is  true  that  our  present  scientific  spirit  is 
materialistic  and  rationalistic.  It  leads  astray  by 
trying  constantly  to  explain  the  higher  by  the  lower, 
by  seeking  to  understand  the  divine  order  of  the 
universe,  by  analyzing  the  material  and  animal  part 
of  things  —  which  is  of  course  like  trying  to  read  a 
book  by  analyzing  chemically  the  paper  and  the  ink. 

But  all  that  will  come  right  by  its  own  tendency 
toward  truth.  The  pendulum  had  to  swing  in  that 
direction,  and  it  will  return,  brought  back  by  man's 
indomitable  desire  for  truth  and  beauty.  Many 
suppose  still,  as  I  did  when  a  boy,  that  man's  goal 
will  be  reached  when  he  is  healthy  and  prosperous 

—  with  a  sound  body,  no  cares  and  enough  to  feed 
and  clothe  him. 

I  know  now,  as  a  man  of  fifty,  that  all  this  will 
leave  us  thoroughly  dissatisfied;  that  this  material 
earthly  paradise,  when  reached,  will  leave  us  un- 
happy, discontented,  sinking  either  into  over-refine- 
ment and  degeneration  or  into  dulness  and  laxity. 

I  know  also  that  this  valley  of  scientific  materi- 
alism has  to  be  crossed  in  order  to  reach  the  glorious 
heights  of  unexpected  and  unconceivable  beatitude 
beyond.  And  I  do  not  regret  that  I  sought  my  way 
through  it,  first  as  a  doctor,  then  as  a  social  reformer, 
ending  as  I  began,  as  a  poet. 


24  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

What  I  learned  in  the  first  two  activities  found 
its  explanation  in  the  last.  The  practical  career 
did  not  stifle  my  ideals  or  aspirations,  but  gave  me 
solid  matter  to  build  with  and  prevented  me  from 
losing  contact  with  earth  and  my  fellow  men,  from 
trying  to  soar  too  high  and  too  quickly. 

Student  life  in  Holland  is  probably  the  most  un- 
constrained in  the  world.  It  has  nothing  like  the 
discipline  of  the  German  universities,  and  keeps 
up  no  religious  formality  such  as  makes  English 
and  American  colleges  look  so  absurdly  old-fash- 
ioned. The  student  in  Holland  is  simply  a  citizen, 
as  free  as  any  other,  who  pays  a  certain  small  sum 
for  the  instruction  he  wants.  His  private  life  is 
of  no  concern  to  the  professors;  his  religion  is  a 
matter  of  his  own  conscience. 

This  may  seem  an  all  too  liberal  treatment  for 
young  men  between  eighteen  and  twenty-five; 
yet  it  is  the  only  thing  the  Hollander  could  stand. 
Our  desire  for  individual  freedom  is  so  inveterate 
that  we  prefer  taking  the  risks  to  curtailing  it.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  I  do  not  believe  that  licentiousness 
is  worse  among  students  in  Holland  than  in  England. 
The  Bohemian  way,  as  it  prevails  in  Paris,  where 
every  student  lives  with  his  grisette,  is  just  as  ex- 
ceptional in  Holland  as  in  England.  These  things 
depend  on  custom  and  character  far  more  than  on 
compulsion  and  rules,  or  on  religious  formalities. 

Although  this  time  of  a  man's  life  is  usually  con- 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  25 

sidered  the  most  happy  and  careless  —  I  did  not 
particularly  enjoy  it.  I  took  part  in  the  usual  fun 
and  jollity  as  much  as  any  one  else;  but  I  hated  the 
town,  and  town  life.  I  could  never  reconcile  our 
amusements  with  the  dulness,  the  ugliness,  the  mis- 
ery around,  and  I  had  no  spiritual  satisfaction.  The 
fashionable  students  forming  what  might  be  called 
the  "club"  showed  in  my  time  very  little  sign  of 
spiritual  life.  They  were  a  rather  insignificant  set; 
their  entertainments  and  amusements  were  com- 
monplace, without  having  wit  or  purpose.  The 
few  young  men  I  knew  of  real  wit  and  genius  were 
poor,  and  lived  a  more  or  less  Bohemian  life  in 
dingy  rooms,  in  sordid  streets.  I  felt  repulsion 
toward  both  types;  and  my  ideals  of  a  glorious 
period  of  ardent  youth,  full  of  beauty  and  enthusi- 
asm, of  high  aims  and  noble  aspirations,  were  never 
realized.  Among  my  contemporaries  were  poets  of 
remarkable  genius,  yet  they  lived  a  narrow,  pro- 
vincial life.  The  great  stream  of  the  world  with 
its  freshness  and  vigour  did  not  touch  them. 
They  formed  little  stagnant  pools,  very  beauti- 
ful at  first,  but  soon  dirty  and  putrescent.  They 
made  wonderfully  fine  verses,  while  living  in  mis- 
erable surroundings,  leading  morbid  lives.  High 
ideals  of  practical  value  they  did  not  foster.  Human- 
ity was  strange  to  them,  they  felt  themselves  the 
elect,  self-satisfied  in  individualism,  untouched  by 
what  moved  the  multitude. 


26  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

I  was  allied  to  these  men,  however,  in  one  im- 
portant matter  —  literature.  We  all  together  went 
in  for  a  revival  of  our  beautiful  language  and  for 
the  liberation  of  literature  from  the  old  bonds  of 
conventionalism  and  bad  taste.  To  accomplish  this 
we  started  a  review  that  had  in  this  one  respect  a 
deep  and  beneficial  influence. 

In  those  student  days  I  wrote  several  plays  and 
had  them  performed  successfully  on  the  stage.  Yet 
I  never  thought  of  making  writing  my  profession. 
Multatuli,  then  a  man  nearing  sixty,  to  whom  I 
sent  my  work  for  approval,  advised  me  to  use  my 
time  better  than  by  seeking  rhymes  and  inventing 
stories  about  how  John  fell  in  love  with  Mary  and 
how  they  got  each  other.  "Better  study  some  useful 
science,"  he  said.  And  this  I  tried  to  do,  settling 
myself  as  a  physician  in  a  village  near  Amsterdam 
—  yet  never  ceasing  to  be  interested  in  the  way 
John  got  his  Mary,  and  spending  my  leisure  hours 
in  seeking  rhymes  and  inventing  stories  that  never 
happened. 

I  had  then  all  that  a  young  man  ought  to  be  con- 
tent with,  health  and  a  happy  home  life  in  a  pleas- 
ant village,  burdened  by  no  cares  and  no  wants. 
Yet  I  felt  thoroughly  unhappy  and  dissatisfied. 
I  was  vaguely  and  dimly  conscious  of  the  great 
wants  of  struggling  humanity.  I  could  hear  the 
distant  roar  of  human  life  in  its  strife  for  justice 
and  happiness:  I  knew  I  could  never  feel  satis- 


DREAMS  OF  YOUTH  27 

faction  in  merely  alleviating  the  physical  troubles 
of  a  few  sick  people  and  in  living  by  the  price  for 
which  I  could  sell  my  cures  to  those  who  could 
afford  it.  I  wanted  to  join  the  real  current  of 
actual  life  and  take  part  in  the  important  events 
of  our  wonderful  time. 


CHAPTER  II 

POET    AND    DOCTOR 

MY  LIFE  as  a  medical  student  in  Amster- 
dam, which  I  have  already  briefly  men- 
tioned, brought  me  my  first  thoroughly 
disillusionizing    and     heart-breaking     impressions. 
Often  there  comes  back  to  my  memory,  and  more 
vividly  and  painfully  also  in  my  dreams,  the  sen- 
sation I  felt  when  entering  for  the  first  time  the 
dissecting  room. 

Think  of  the  feelings  of  a  romantic  boy  with  a 
tender  character  and  an  imagination  constantly 
wrapped  up  in  the  beauties  of  wild  nature,  of  flowers 
and  birds  and  butterflies  —  when  he  comes  into  a 
low,  bare  room  filled  with  a  slight  haze  of  tobacco 
smoke,  oppressive  with  smells  of  carbolic  acid  and 
putrefying  flesh — where  on  black  tables,  the  ghastly 
remnants  of  what  once  were  men  were  visible  in 
vague  and  horrid  confusion  —  while  an  apparently 
unconcerned  crowd  of  young  men  in  long,  blood- 
soiled  robes  were  busily  active,  chattering  and 
sometimes  loudly  laughing,  like  workmen  inter- 
ested in  a  wonted  but  not  unpleasant  task. 

28 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  29 

I  did  not  want  to  be  sentimental,  however.  I 
did  not  swoon,  or  grow  pale,  or  shudder,  or  turn 
sick,  as  I  have  seen  the  newcomers  do.  I  always 
could  control  my  nerves  fairly  well,  and  I  felt  bound 
to  take  all  this  stoically,  looking  at  it  from  the  lofty 
viewpoint  of  the  philosopher.  Yet  the  impression 
must  have  been  deep  and  terrible,  for  its  horror 
never  left  me  until  this  day.  On  the  fresh  and 
tender  soul  of  a  boy  of  eighteen,  hungry  for  beauty 
and  poetry,  this  gruesome  aspect  of  what  human 
beauty  becomes  in  the  end  is  like  a  heavy  blow. 
The  shock  left  a  deep  scar  on  my  soul.  We  mod- 
erns are  no  Greeks  —  and  Dutchmen  least  of  all. 
The  glories  of  the  well-shaped  human  body  are  not 
a  daily  sight  and  constant  joy  for  us.  In  this  awful 
place,  while  my  imagination  was  still  pure  and  un- 
touched, I  saw  for  the  first  time  the  mystery  of 
womanly  beauty  unveiled  in  a  way  horrible  to  be- 
hold. I  felt  it  sometimes  like  an  unpardonable 
insult,  a  crime  never  to  be  forgotten  or  forgiven, 
a  shameful  arrangement  of  life,  of  the  world,  to 
spoil  and  pollute  a  young,  impressionable  soul  like 
this. 

And  yet,  where  was  the  wrong?  Anatomy  has 
to  be  learned  in  this  way;  there  is  no  other.  Whom 
could  I  call  responsible  unless  it  be  the  Creator  who 
made  us  flesh? 

There  was,  however,  the  indignity  of  it.  These 
students  looked  like  butcher  boys,  and  had  a  light- 


3o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

hearted  businesslike  way;  sometimes  they  even 
affected  an  air  of  unconcernedness.  Seeing  them 
at  work  was  like  seeing  flies  or  ants  busy  on  a 
corpse.  The  solemnity  of  death  was  utterly  dis- 
regarded. The  facts  that  we  are  subject  to  all  sorts 
of  disease  that  have  to  be  studied  and  cured,  that 
what  remains  of  our  bodies,  however  graceful  and 
beautiful,  must  become  so  horrible,  loathsome,  and 
ugly  —  Q\\  th^  is  a  Jeep,  sad  truth,  and  has  to  be 
approached  with  awe  and  earnestness.  Nothing  can 
be  more  revolting  to  the  mind  of  the  poet  than  to 
see  this  solemn  and  terrible  study  of  anatomy  and 
pathology  brought  down  to  the  level  of  banality 
and  everyday  business. 

This  is  only  one  side  of  what  made  my  medical 
career  so  painful  to  me.  The  medical  students  in 
Holland,  thirty  years  ago,  were  not  a  very  high- 
minded  or  refined  set.  Medicine  was  then  a  busi- 
ness that  promised  an  income,  and  the  state  paid 
allowances  to  medical  students  who  signed  for  the 
Colonial  army.  This  attracted  many  poor  young 
men,  who  took  up  the  study  for  no  other  reason  than 
to  make  a  living. 

I  once  overheard  one  of  my  professors,  rather  an 
aristocrat  and  somewhat  of  a  swell,  saying  with  a 
sneer  to  a  colleague  who  stood  near  him,  as  the  two 
were  watching  the  slovenly  and  ill-mannered  crowd 
leave  the  lecture  room:  "Would  one  not  say  that 
I  had  given  a  bread  and  coffee  distribution?" 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  31 

Numerous  and  various  were  the  ways  by  which 
this  coarse  and  vulgar  company  offended  my  finer 
feelings.  Their  attitude  in  the  lecture  room,  when 
a  sick  person  from  the  hospital  was  brought  in  for 
demonstration,  was  shocking.  They  smoked  and 
laughed  and  chattered,  while  the  poor,  pale  sufferer 

-  of  course  a  pauper  —  was  lying  in  their  midst, 
sometimes  looking  around  with  shy,  anxious  glance 

-  sometimes  staring  blankly,  and  sadly  lost  in  his 
own  troubles  and  cares. 

Once  a  poor  man  was  brought  in  affected  with  a 
very  strange  and  rare  disease  of  the  spine,  that 
caused  him,  by  involuntary  spasms  of  the  legs,  to 
jump  and  to  continue  hopping  when  he  tried  to 
stand  on  his  legs.  Our  professor  wanted  to  show 
this  to  his  students  and  he  requested  the  patient 
to  stand  on  his  feet.  The  poor  man  looked 
at  the  crowd  around  and  said,  with  a  pathetic, 
imploring  look:  "If  the  gentlemen  will  please 
not  laugh."  The  professor  promised  they  would  be 
serious. 

And  yet,  when  the  man  began  to  hop,  the  "  gentle- 
men" roared.  And  I  felt  the  tears  come  to  my  eyes 
and  my  fists  close  in  my  pockets. 

Of  course  nobody  could  be  justly  blamed  — 
neither  these  sons  of  farmers  and  shopmen  for  not 
being  refined  and  for  trying  to  make  a  living,  nor 
the  professors,  who  did  all  they  could  to  educate 
them  and  to  make  them  as  little  dangerous  as 


32  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

possible  before  they  were,  as  the  saying  ran,  "  turned 
loose  upon  humanity." 

One  question,  however,  presented  itself  to  my 
mind  more  strongly  every  day  and  could  not  be 
discarded :  Why  was  it  that  the  rich  man  who  was 
sick  was  surrounded  by  the  most  respectful  silence 
and  protected  from  all  intrusion  of  strangers  or 
of  noisy  or  indifferent  people  —  whereas  the  poor 
sufferer,  because  he  had  no  money,  was  submitted 
to  public  demonstrations  and  used  as  a  welcome 
and  legitimate  material  for  instruction  ?  Would  we 
suffer  our  ailing  mother  or  sister  to  serve  as  an 
object  on  which  a  young  and  nervous  candidate 
should  pass  his  examination?  If  clinical  practice 
is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  student,  why  must  it 
be  the  poor,  and  the  poor  only,  to  whose  miseries, 
already  so  hard  to  bear,  this  new  ordeal  is  added? 
Was  it  justice  to  make  the  poor  workman,  who  had 
served  society  during  health,  continue  serving  it 
during  sickness,  and  even  after  death  in  the  dis- 
secting room? 

The  dark  and  cruel  phantom  of  social  iniquity 
began  to  show  itself.  Was  there  indeed  no  man  to 
blame  and  could  responsibility  be  thrown  on  the 
Creator  only?  I  felt  the  wrong  keenly,  but  I  saw 
no  explanation,  no  issue,  no  way  to  help.  The 
tremendous  power  of  social  convention,  the  all-per- 
vading influence  of  general  opinion  that  took  these 
things  as  customary  and  right,  veiled  my  true 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  33 

judgment  just  as  it  did  that  of  the  majority  —  and 
it  took  me  ten  years  at  least  of  lonely  struggle  before 
I  got  true  insight  and  saw  the  full  extent  of  the 
evil,  and  the  only  way  out  of  it. 

The  professor  who  had  to  give  me  my  degree  was 
a  man  of  renown  and  a  clever  practitioner,  but  not 
much  of  a  poet.  He  did  not  care  for  things  unusual 
or  for  ways  eccentric.  He  made  me  go  to  Paris  in 
order  to  study  the  problem  of  nutrition  in  the 
disease  of  tuberculosis.  In  Paris  I  attended  the 
lectures  of  Charcot  and  became  acquainted  with 
the  wonders  of  hypnotism  and  suggestion,  which 
were  then  only  recently  discovered.  I  saw  how  a 
blister  could  be  raised  on  the  skin  of  a  sensitive 
person  simply  by  sticking  a  glued  piece  of  paper 
on  it  and  by  telling  him  positively  that  it  was  a 
cantharid  plaster.  I  saw  people  put  to  sleep  by  a 
single  word  of  command;  merely  by  the  power  of 
verbal  suggestion,  they  could  be  made  to  see  pic- 
tures on  blank  walls,  to  feel  a  cold  spoon  glowing  hot, 
to  drink  water  and  take  it  for  wine.  This  interested 
me  mightily,  and  on  coming  back  to  Amsterdam  I 
wished  to  continue  my  study  of  this  matter  and  to 
take  my  degree  in  it.  My  professor,  however,  con- 
sidered it  far  too  fantastical  and  extraordinary  for 
a  serious  scientific  work.  He  would  not  permit  me 
to  specialize  in  hypnotism,  and  I  had  to  go  on  with 
the  subject  chosen  by  him. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  could  not  give  up  writing 


34  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

poetry  and  dramatic  work.  I  never  made  any 
more  effort  than  was  strictly  necessary  to  get 
through  my  examinations,  and  consequently  I  did 
not  cut  a  brilliant  figure. 

When  I  was  twenty-three  I  succeeded  in  getting 
my  first  comedy  on  the  stage  at  the  principal  theatre 
of  Amsterdam.  It  was  a  light  and  somewhat 
satirical  play,  in  which  I  attacked,  with  a  very 
characteristic  want  of  diplomacy,  exactly  that 
power  on  which  the  career  of  a  young  playwright 
is  depending  —  i.e.,  the  press.  It  showed  a  big 
journalist,  who  had  just  torn  to  pieces  the  work  of 
a  young  poet,  praising  another  poem  of  that  same 
poet  highly,  because  he  supposed  it  came  from  a 
rich  young  cad  whom  he  considered  a  welcome 
suitor  for  his  daughter. 

Notwithstanding  this  rather  reckless  way  of  pro- 
ceeding, the  thing  was  a  success.  I  even  dare  say 
that  I  never  afterward  could  boast  of  anything 
so  much  like  a  decisive  victory.  Never,  when  in 
later  years  my  claims  to  appreciation  were  much 
greater,  have  I  received  such  an  ovation.  At  that 
time  I  was  young,  unknown,  and  supported  only 
by  my  student  friends,  and  yet  I  was  honoured  with 
wreaths  and  presents  and  speeches  —  attentions 
which  never  were  repeated  when  I  began  to  do  what 
I  consider  real  work. 

In  April,  1886,  I  passed  a  busy  few  days:  I 
celebrated  my  twenty-seventh  birthday;  and  in  the 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  35 

same  week  presented  the  finished  copy  of  my  dis- 
sertation to  my  professor,  married,  and  conducted 
the  guests  of  my  wedding  party,  by  way  of  an  extra 
treat,  to  the  first  night  of  my  second  play  at  the 
Municipal  Theatre  of  Amsterdam.  By  good  luck 
for  me  and  the  party  the  play  did  not  fall  through. 

The  life  of  a  village  practitioner  did  not  satisfy 
me  in  the  least.  I  have  great  respect  for  those  who 
can  do  their  daily  rounds  year  after  year  and  feel 
satisfaction  in  this  career  of  useful  drudgery.  Yet 
I  was  not  made  for  it.  As  soon  as  I  felt  free  from 
all  academical  bonds  I.  went  again  to  France  and 
studied  hypnotism  and  suggestion  in  Paris  and 
Nancy.  When  I  came  home  I  was  in  the  highest 
spirits  and  radiantly  told  my  friends  that  I  had 
found  the  true  cure  for  humanity.  I  had  seen  now 
that  the  body  could  be  cured  by  the  mind,  and  this 
I  felt  to  be  the  only  true  and  lasting  cure.  And  I 
was  not  mistaken.  I  still  think  it  is  true  —  and 
in  a  far  deeper  and  wider  sense  than  I  understood 
it  at  that  time. 

There  was  then  only  one  other  doctor  in  Hol- 
land interested  in  the  same  matter.  And  in  order 
to  act  fairly  and  not  to  start  a  somewhat  undignified 
competition,  I  proposed  to  found  a  common  clinic 
at  Amsterdam  to  be  conducted  by  both  of  us  and 
to  be  called  by  the  new  name  Psycho- therapeutic. 
This  enterprise  turned  out  to  be  a  great  success  — 
but  principally  for  my  colleague,  not  for  me.  He 


36  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

is  still  conducting  it  and  he  sees  a  great  number  of 
patients  every  day.  I  left  him  after  seven  years 
of  practice. 

Why?  Was  there  a  serious  reason  for  disap- 
pointment? We  succeeded  in  curing  many  people, 
sometimes  quite  wonderfully  and  unexpectedly. 
Of  course  we  failed  very  often,  but  the  constant 
stream  of  visitors  showed  the  increasing  confi- 
dence of  the  public  and  the  efficiency  of  our  method. 
What  could  a  doctor  want  more?  In  the  begin- 
ning the  vogue  of  our  clinic  grew  so  rapidly 
as  to  become  embarrassing.  The  public  was  then 
not  yet  alarmed  by  the  supposed  or  real  dangers  of 
hypnotism,  and  the  rumours  of  some  happy  cures 
were  widely  spread.  All  those  sufferers  who  went 
from  one  specialist  to  another  seeking  relief  — 
especially  from  nervous  troubles  —  now  flocked 
to  us.  Our  waiting  rooms  were  crowded;  our 
orthodox  colleagues  in  the  town  became  suspicious 
and  began  to  talk  of  quackery  and  humbug.  Every 
day  we  had  a  fair  pile  of  coins  to  share.  My  com- 
panion, a  better  business  man  than  I,  took  care  of 
that  department.  To  me  it  was  the  most  disgusting 
part  of  the  proceedings,  however  pleasant  its  final 
effect  might  seem.  Once,  when  a  patient,  whose 
cure  had  cost  me  endless  patience  and  trouble, 
given  with  all  my  heart,  handed  over  to  me  the 
usual  envelope  with  money,  I  felt  so  humiliated 
and  ashamed  that  I  tore  the  money  from  her  hand 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  37 

and  threw  it  into  the  waste  paper  basket,  with  a 
gesture  that  must  have  seemed  rather  theatrical 
and  foolish.  Yet  it  came  from  a  deep  and  real 
feeling.  Of  course  I  had  to  swallow  my  pride 
and  humiliate  myself  still  further  by  fishing  the 
money  carefully  out  from  among  the  waste  papers. 

But  this  awful  money  question  never  stopped 
spoiling  my  fun  in  the  work.  It  was  like  a  dis- 
dainful penstroke  through  my  finest  efforts  of  char- 
ity. It  was  a  refusal  and  an  annulment  of  my 
gifts  of  love.  The  sufferer  did  not  care  to  accept 
my  kindness,  he  wanted  to  buy  it  —  so  much  for 
every  bit  of  good  advice,  so  much  for  every  kind 
word,  so  much  for  every  hour  of  patience  and  effort 
—  the  tariff  was  in  the  waiting  room. 

And  then  these  absurd  distinctions  of  classes! 
We  treated  our  poor  patients  gratis,  as  most  doctors 
do,  or  at  a  very  low  fee.  In  order  to  do  this  we  had 
to  burden  our  richer  patients  more  heavily.  Broad- 
minded  people  did  not  object  to  this  method.  They 
had  the  sense  of  honour  to  give  what  they  could 
spare  for  such  an  important  service  as  the  res- 
toration of  their  health.  They  gave  in  a  delicate 
way  as  if  they  were  offering  a  gift  which  could  never 
equal  our  services  and  for  the  acceptance  of  which 
they  kindly  thanked  us. 

But  broad-minded  people  are  rare,  especially  in 
Holland,  and  our  task  often  became  the  loathsome 
task  of  the  tax-collector.  We  had  to  tax  our  clients 


38  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

and  make  them  pay,  sometimes  even  with  the 
assistance  of  the  strong  hand  of  the  law.  To  the 
poor  I  was  free  to  be  kind  and  good;  to  the  rich  I 
had  to  be  a  merchant  in  charity.  To  my  good 
colleague  this  was  no  objection  at  all.  He  thought 
of  his  family,  of  the  education  of  his  children, 
and  he  knew  how  to  combine  these  interests  with 
those  of  science  and  of  suffering  humanity.  To  me 
such  a  confusion  of  sentiments  was  a  sad  and  hope- 
less muddle.  For  that  pride  of  the  poet,  which  is 
his  most  delicate  and  at  the  same  time  his  most 
stubborn  quality,  I  found  no  place  in  present  soci- 
ety. It  was  entirely  useless  and  troublesome.  I  may 
add  that  I  went  through  the  same  experience  with 
regard  to  my  artistic  productions.  It  was  just  as 
disgusting  to  me  to  barter  my  poetry  for  so  many 
cents  a  line  to  publishers  as  it  was  to  sell  my  acts 
of  love  and  service  to  invalids. 

The  result  was  that  I  preferred  to  live  on  the 
money  given  to  me  by  my  wealthy  relations,  exactly 
the  state  of  affairs  that  is  considered  most  humiliat- 
ing in  our  present  society  —  why,  more  so  than 
other  things,  I  failed  to  see. 

Having  retired  from  our  clinic  in  Amsterdam 
and  being  once  more  free  to  have  my  own  way, 
I  still  continued  to  see  patients.  But  I  told  them, 
in  a  printed  pamphlet,  that  I  helped  them  for  love's 
sake  and  refused  to  sell  my  services  or  to  tax  their 
financial  power.  I  said,  however,  that  I  would 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  39 

accept  any  gift  they  would  offer  me,  seeing  no 
humiliation  in  the  acceptance  of  one  cent  or  of  a 
million.  I  would  rather  be  a  beggar  and  live  on 
alms  than  be  a  dealer  in  things  that  have  no  equiva- 
lent in  money. 

Useless  to  say  that  my  patients  did  not  like  this 
sort  of  idealism!  They  wanted  to  buy  my  services 
at  fashionable  prices,  and  even  to  haggle  over  them 
and  make  a  good  bargain.  Until  this  day  I  have 
not  come  to  an  understanding  with  them,  either  in 
matters  of  charity  or  of  art.  And  I  know  that  only 
a  better  organization  of  society  can  bring  about 
the  settlement  of  this  quarrel.  Now  and  then,  how- 
ever, as  a  pleasant  exception,  I  am  able  to  help 
somebody  or  to  do  some  good  without  the  money- 
question  spoiling  my  fun.  In  the  English  language 
there  is  a  very  characteristic  word  for  the  payment 
given  to  a  doctor.  It  is  called  a  "fee."  I  often 
wondered  how  those  proud  British  physicians  could 
endure  so  gracefully  to  be  treated  like  a  waiter  or 
a  valet. 

In  the  course  of  time,  however,  the  force  of  cir- 
cumstances bent  my  idealistic  sentiments  in  a  new 
direction.  I  wanted  money  because  I  had  a  family 
to  take  care  of.  I  wanted  the  necessities  of  life 
that  money  can  buy.  And  I  saw  no  shame  at  all 
in  exchanging  material  things,  food  and  clothes, 
for  their  equivalent  in  money.  Commerce  was  all 
right  when  limited  to  material  production.  So 


40  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

if  I  objected  to  selling  art  and  charity,  and  did  not 
want  to  live  on  alms,  I  had  only  one  way  out:  taking 
part  in  material  production. 

And  this  is  indeed  what  I  then  tried  to  do.  I 
realized  perfectly  well  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  subsist  entirely  in  that  way.  In  Holland  the  aver- 
age wage  of  the  land  labourer  —  the  man  whose 
labour  is  most  certainly  and  entirely  productive  — 
amounted  to  three  or  four  dollars  a  week.  I  saw 
no  possibility  of  sustaining  my  family  on  less  than 
five  times  that  amount. 

If  the  ideal  could  not  be  attained  in  that  way,  at 
least  it  could  be  approached.  By  living  soberly 
and  doing  my  very  best  I  would  lessen  at  least  the 
amount  of  alms  I  had  to  accept.  Though  perhaps 
not  able  to  compete  with  the  trained  land  labourer, 
I  felt  healthy  and  strong  and  liked  outdoor  work. 
Moreover,  intelligence  might  come  in  and  make  up 
for  the  want  of  muscular  strength.  And  then  the 
poor  land  labourer,  as  I  knew  perfectly  well,  was 
cheated  out  of  his  full  earnings  by  landlord  and 
middleman.  I  would  buy  my  own  piece  of  land, 
and  use  my  own  products,  eliminating  in  that  way 
to  a  certain  extent  the  landlord  and  the  middleman. 

I  remember  very  clearly  my  condition  of  mind 
when  I  resolved  to  follow  up  this  plan,  now  some 
twelve  years  ago.  I  had  a  clear  presentiment  of 
what  it  would  mean.  It  looked  very  simple  and 
sensible  —  yet  it  was  a  jump  into  the  dark,  and  a 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  41 

declaration  of  independence  —  that  is,  of  war  — 
against  society.  Until  that  day  I  had  been  a  suc- 
cessful and  fashionable  doctor  and  man  of  letters  — 
with  a  few  queer  but  quite  pardonable  eccentricities. 
After  that  day  I  was  a  crank,  an  enemy  of  the  exist- 
ent social  order,  a  lost  sheep,  a  welcome  object 
for  derision  or  pity.  And  the  worst  of  it  was  that 
I  was  not  the  only  sufferer.  I  had  to  draw  my  fam- 
ily with  me.  And  by  unforeseen  complications 
this  responsibility  became  hardest  of  all  to  bear. 

My  literary  career  had  been  quiet  and  not  un- 
successful. Considering  conditions  in  Holland  my 
books  sold  rather  well  and  brought  me  between 
$400  and  $1000  a  year.  Of  course  I  had  the  usual 
experiences  of  young  authors  and  made  the  usual 
blunders.  I  sold  the  copyright  of  my  first  book 
to  a  publisher  for  $60,  and  he  made  me  believe,  in 
all  faith,  that  I  had  made  a  good  bargain.  Several 
years  later  when  I  wanted  to  buy  that  copyright 
back  he  would  not  give  it  under  $10,000.  The  good 
bargain  was  evidently  on  his  side.  I  had  given  up 
writing  for  the  stage  because  the  managers  wanted 
me  to  do  what  I  thought  inferior  work  and  refused 
to  present  what,  in  my  opinion,  was  really  good  art. 
I  resolved  to  do  without  managers  and  theatres  and 
wrote  two  great  plays,  a  tragedy  and  a  drama,  which 
I  consider  my  best  productions;  the  staging  of  them, 
however,  would  hardly  have  been  possible  in  the 
form  they  were  then,  because  I  did  not  count  with 


42  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

the  theatre.  In  later  years  I  came  down  from  my 
proud  attitude  and  adapted  both  plays  for  the 
German  stage. 

By  this  time  my  position  in  the  literary  world 
had  become  quite  isolated.  The  success  of  my 
earlier  years  had  died  away.  I  was  now  striking 
another  note  and  giving  my  real,  deeper  self.  The 
poet  true  to  his  mission  cannot  avoid  being  a 
prophet,  a  reformer,  an  enemy  of  the  present  by 
proclaiming  the  beauty  of  the  future.  Those  of 
my  former  literary  friends  who  were  mere  artists  and 
aesthetes  denounced  me  as  a  moralist,  a  preacher, 
a  hypocrite,  a  poser. 

One  of  them,  the  most  gifted  and  influential,  lost 
his  moral  balance  entirely.  In  his  temporary  mad- 
ness he  heaped  on  me  an  amount  of  invective,  and 
delivered,  in  the  most  inferior  sort  of  poetry,  a 
torrent  of  such  abominable  abuse  as  was  probably 
never  equalled  in  any  civilized  country.  And  such 
is  the  servility  of  some  people  to  the  autocracy  of 
genius  that  these  aberrations  were  taken  seriously 
by  his  admirers  and  created  a  sphere  of  animosity, 
a  prejudice,  against  me  which  has  endured  until 
this  very  day.  From  that  date  he  and  his  adherents 
maintained  that  my  force  was  spent,  my  talent  lost, 
and  that  nothing  was  to  be  expected  from  me  any 
more.  As  I  continued,  however,  though  wiped  out 
by  this  verdict,  to  produce  and  to  be  read,  they  had 
to  repeat  their  assertions  every  time  a  new  work 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  43 

of  mine  was  issued.  In  this  way  I  got  an  excellent 
training,  and  it  is  very  difficult  for  any  critic  now 
to  tell  me  anything  worse  than  what  I  have  heard 
many  times  before. 

A  remarkable  incident  may  be  mentioned  here. 
That  same  man  of  genius  who  saw  in  me  his  worst 
opponent  or  competitor  —  I  am  not  quite  sure 
which  he  really  considered  me  —  now  surrounded 
only  by  blind  admirers,  became  an  alcoholist  of  the 
worst  description.  It  was  indeed  one  of  the  most 
terrible  cases  I  ever  saw.  He  tried  to  commit  sui- 
cide and  was  at  last  put  into  the  lunatic  asylum 
of  Utrecht.  From  there  he  wrote  imploring  letters 
to  me  —  whom  he  had  insulted  more  than  any  living 
person  —  that  I  might  come  and  deliver  him.  I 
went  and  saw  him  a  few  times  and  was  convinced 
that  the  man  could  be  cured.  His  friends  and  re- 
lations, however,  who  had  locked  him  in,  strongly 
opposed  any  such  experiment.  The  doctors  who 
had  treated  him  unanimously  declared  his  case  in- 
curable. Among  them  was  one  of  our  first  experts 
in  nervous  diseases. 

All  this  only  stimulated  my  medical  instinct. 
On  my  own  responsibility  and  against  the  wish  and 
advice  of  all  his  friends  and  doctors  I  took  him  out 
of  the  asylum  and  brought  him  to  my  own  home. 
There  I  kept  him  for  about  six  months  and  had  the 
satisfaction  to  cure  him  entirely.  Until  this  day, 
which  is  about  twenty  years  later,  he  has  been  a 


44  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

total  abstainer  and  has  had  good  health.  His 
wonderful  genius,  however,  was  broken  forever. 
Nevertheless  —  so  great  is  the  inertia  of  the  human 
mind  —  he  and  his  old  friends  still  continue  their 
former  attitude  toward  me,  though  with  somewhat 
more  caution,  telling  the  public,  which  is  ignorant 
of  what  really  happened,  that  it  was  not  his  but  my 
talent  that  had  suffered,  and  that  I  did  not  fulfil 
the  fine  promise  of  my  youth  because  I  did  not 
acknowledge  his  superiority. 

I  have  never  given  publicity  to  this  incident  until 
now,  and  only  a  few  people  in  Holland  know  it. 
I  am  informed  that  those  few  explain  my  conduct 
as  hypocritical  affectation,  as  posing  and  wanting 
to  play  the  Christ.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that 
any  good  physician  who  saw  such  an  opportunity 
as  clearly  as  I  did  then  would  have  seized  it.  At 
any  rate  if  there  was  affectation  the  patient  had  all 
the  benefit  of  it. 

Not  all  my  literary  friends  were  bitter  individual- 
ists and  aesthetic  egoists  like  this  one.  There  were 
a  few  who  felt  the  emptiness  and  provinciality  of 
his  sort  of  literary  refinement.  They  wanted  to  get 
into  touch  with  the  principal  current  of  life  and  to 
close  up  with  the  living  stream  of  humanity.  Yet 
they  did  not  find  the  way  out  of  their  spiritual 
captivity  by  following  the  light  of  their  own  soul. 
They  were  swept  by  that  side  current  known  as 
Marxian  social-democracy.  Not  able  to  free  them- 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  45 

selves  by  their  own  force  they  submitted  to  the 
influence  of  the  powerful  personality  of  Marx. 

Karl  Marx  was  certainly  a  man  of  enormous  power 
and  intellectual  strength.  Yet  he  stood  with  both 
feet  in  the  swamp  of  materialism.  In  this  he  was 
representative  of  his  time.  In  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  rationalism  and  materialism 
were  at  their  highest  point  and  pervaded  all  human 
thought  and  activity.  Never  could  I  submit  to  a 
mind,  however  great  its  energy  and  eloquence,  that 
was  entangled  in  such  erroneous  conceptions  of  life. 
To  me  it  was  turning  truth  upside  down,  explain- 
ing the  higher  by  the  lower,  and  taking  all  sense 
and  significance  out  of  the  world. 

In  this  resistance  I  stood  alone  among  all  my 
literary  and  artistic  contemporaries.  After  the  at- 
tacks of  the  aesthetic  individualists  I  had  to  bear 
those  of  the  fanatic  Marxians.  They  are  known 
the  world  over  for  the  passionate  violence,  the  party 
spirit  in  its  worst  sense,  with  which  they  condemn 
and  abuse  those  who  do  not  bend  to  their  dogmas 
or  kneel  before  their  altars.  I  had  my  full  share 
of  their  scorn,  and  was  called  Utopian,  bourgeois, 
and  the  like.  When  I  began  my  campaign  as  a 
social  reformer  —  by  trying  to  reform  myself, 
and  by  calling  for  helpmates  and  sympathizers, 
I  was  denounced  at  once  and  unanimously  by  the 
social-democratic  press  as  a  foolish  idealist  and  a 
deceiver  of  the  people.  The  helpmates  came 


46  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

nevertheless  and  I  was  soon  surrounded  by  a  few 
enthusiasts  who  wanted  to  support  my  plan  and  to 
share  my  endeavours.  But  alas!  there  are  friends 
more  dangerous  than  enemies. 

The  thing  I  was  about  to  do  I  had  never  done 
before.  I  was  going  into  business.  The  strength 
of  a  business  man  lies  in  his  social  relations.  He 
must  know  many  people,  and  select  them  according 
to  their  value.  Now  the  people  I  knew  could  be 
of  no  service  to  me.  They  had  come  to  me  as  to  a 
poet  or  a  doctor;  they  were  artists  or  invalids. 
Therefore  when,  in  my  fortieth  year,  I  made  a  new 
move  and  went  in  for  production  and  commerce, 
I  found  that  I  had  no  friends  whatever  in  the  world 
of  business.  This  explains  a  great  many  of  my 
troubles. 

The  distance  between  the  different  "sets"  in  soci- 
ety is  enormous.  In  the  world  of  poets  and  artists 
things  are  discussed  and  believed  that  would  never 
enter  into  the  mind  of  a  business  man.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  business  man  in  his  narrow  sphere 
of  interest  has  no  idea  of  the  delights,  the  free- 
dom of  mind,  the  wide  vistas  of  the  poet  or  ar- 
tist. They  neither  understand  nor  trust  each  other. 

My  plan  was  folly  in  the  eye  of  the  business  man. 
Not  one,  of  course,  tried  to  help  me.  Yet  I  wanted 
their  help  most  of  all.  For  living  by  personal  pro- 
ductive labour  is  made  the  easier  according  as  more 
producers  join  on  common  ground. 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  47 

Those  who  wanted  to  join  me  were  the  most  unfit 
for  the  work.  There  was  a  poor  painter  with  a 
large  family  who  wanted  to  paint  —  of  course  — 
and  live  as  cheaply  as  possible.  In  his  leisure  hours 
he  would  plant  and  dig.  There  were  some  young 
poets  attracted  by  the  romantic  side  of  living  in  a 
hut  in  the  woods;  there  were  some  delicate  persons, 
neurasthenics  or  overworked  people,  who  thought 
that  a  country  life  would  benefit  their  health;  there 
was  a  kind  of  shipwrecked  genius  with  great  elo- 
quence, lofty  ideas,  and  very  little  efficiency,  with 
debts  and  half  a  dozen  ill-bred  children;  there  were 
downright  scoundrels  who  tried  to  fool  me  and  to 
have  an  easy  life  at  my  cost;  there  were  poor  land 
labourers,  so  poor  that  the  simple  life  I  could  offer 
them  seemed  a  luxurious  existence;  there  were  — 
worst  of  all  —  social  fanatics,  with  a  number  of 
"principles"  for  which  they  were  ready  to  suffer 
but  which  resulted  in  making  others  suffer  more 
than  they  did  themselves. 

From  the  very  beginning  my  dealings  with  busi- 
ness men  were  unlucky.  I  bought  the  place,  which 
is  still  in  my  possession,  from  a  man  who  was  at 
that  time  my  patient.  I  had  cured  him  in  a  very 
short  time  from  a  painful  disease  that  made  him 
unable  to  walk  more  than  a  few  paces.  He  had 
sought  in  vain  for  a  remedy  during  several  years  with 
the  most  renowned  doctors,  spent  great  sums  of 
money  for  cures,  and  had  even  submitted  to  a 


48  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

dangerous  operation,  all  without  result.  So  when 
I  had  cured  him  —  and  the  cure  has  lasted  to  this 
very  day  —  he  professed  the  utmost  gratitude  and 
expressed  his  desire  to  give  me  a  princely  reward. 
I  had  no  capital  at  that  time,  but  I  induced  a  friend 
of  mine,  a  lady  of  great  wealth  who  was  an  enthu- 
siastic idealist,  to  buy  the  estate  for  me.  I  said  I 
would  buy  it  back  as  soon  as  I  got  money  myself. 
I  asked  my  patient,  the  business  man,  what  sum 
he  wanted  for  his  estate.  I  knew  that  he  was  in 
bad  straits  then,  and  I  supposed  he  would  be  glad 
to  accept  a  fair  offer,  and  I  counted  on  his  gratitude 
not  to  cheat  me.  The  sum  he  named  was  rather 
high,  but  I  concluded  the  bargain  at  once,  without 
bartering.  This  conduct  seemed  to  him  so  extra- 
ordinary that  he  grew  very  much  excited.  I  saw 
his  face  grow  pale  and  his  eyes  glitter.  He  supposed 
I  must  be  mad  or  very  rich,  and  then  he  tried  by  all 
means  of  tricks  to  get  more  out  of  me.  He  made  an 
exorbitant  note  of  extras,  old  furniture  and  so  on. 
I  grew  indignant  at  this  sort  of  gratitude  and  re- 
fused to  give  in.  From  that  moment  my  grateful 
patient  became  my  bitterest  enemy,  who  did  me  all 
the  damage  he  could. 

The  wealthy  lady,  who  had  bought  the  estate, 
married,  and  her  marriage  seemed  not  to  increase 
her  idealism.  First  her  relations,  and  then  her 
husband,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she  had  done 
a  very  foolish  thing.  Her  original  plan  to  come  and 


POET  AND  DOCTOR  49 

live  at  the  estate  herself  she  had  given  up,  and  as 
I  had  not  insisted  on  a  very  strict  contract,  they 
threatened  to  drive  me  off.  After  some  trouble  I 
succeeded  in  finding  another  friend  who  enabled  me 
to  buy  the  place  for  myself.  Until  to-day  I  have  not 
been  able  to  pay  the  money  back;  for,  though  some 
years  later  I  got  a  rather  considerable  sum  by  in- 
heritance, my  role  as  a  capitalist  lasted  only  a  few 
months.  By  that  time  I  had  started  the  big  co- 
operative experiment  in  Amsterdam  which  is  de- 
scribed in  another  chapter.  And  just  at  the  mo- 
ment when  I  became  rather  well-to-do,  and  when 
the  productive  settlement  was  beginning,  an  unfore- 
seen catastrophe  descended  upon  the  big  organiza- 
tion and  swallowed  every  cent  I  had. 


CHAPTER  III 

A    LITERARY    EXPERIMENT 

IT  HAS  been  for  a  long  time  a  serious  puzzle  to 
me  how  it  came  that,  although  I  tried  honestly 
to  employ  my  powers  in  the  most  useful  and 
efficient  way,  I  found  myself  one  of  the  most  iso- 
lated, most  violently  attacked  and  insulted  per- 
sonalities in  my  own  country.  Until  my  thirty- 
second  year  I  was  rather  popular  in  Holland  — 
more  so  than  my  contemporaries.  I  had  practically 
no  enemies.  In  my  forty-fifth  year  I  stood  entirely 
alone;  whatever  I  did  was  ridiculed;  whatever  I 
wrote  was  vehemently  denounced;  whether  I  had 
supporters  I  could  not  tell,  because  they  kept  cau- 
tiously silent,  and  those  few  who  pretended  to  be 
my  friends  did  more  to  ruin  me  than  my  enemies. 

The  public  said  of  course  that  it  was  all  my  own 
fault.  No  doubt  they  were  right.  If  I  had  wanted 
to  keep  my  popularity  I  ought  to  have  acted  dif- 
ferently. The  question  was  whether  the  way  they 
wanted  me  to  go  was  the  right  one  for  me. 

In  regard  to  this  matter  I  may  relate  a  little 
psychological  experiment  which  I  made  just  at  the 

so 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  51 

time  when  the  star  of  public  favour  seemed  to  be 
setting,  and  which  led  me  to  very  curious  and  in- 
structive results.  It  gave  me,  once  for  all,  an 
astonishing  revelation  about  the  value  of  literary 
judgment  and  public  opinion. 

The  first  men  who  had  turned  against  me  were 
my  literary  friends.  The  most  prominent  and 
influential  of  them,  in  fact  the  acknowledged  leader, 
who  is  still  considered  by  many  as  Holland's  greatest 
poet,  is  the  man  whom  I  mentioned  in  the  last  chap- 
ter as  having  eventually  become  my  patient.  I  will 
call  him  X. 

X.  had  apparently  the  qualities  of  a  genius.  He 
could  write  beautiful  verses  and  excellent  critical 
prose.  He  represented  the  revolutionary  spirit  in 
our  rather  dull,  conventional  literary  world.  The 
great  public  of  course  did  not  appreciate  him,  but 
he  was  the  hero  of  the  select  few  among  the  younger 
generation.  He  and  I  were  of  the  same  age,  and 
he  called  me  his  best  friend.  I  did  not  know  that 
my  greater  popularity  was  soon  to  make  him  jeal- 
ous of  me  and  cause  him  to  assume  an  attitude  of 
critical  superiority. 

After  a  few  years  of  collaboration  I  perceived, 
however,  that  there  were  deep  and  essential  dif- 
ferences between  us  which  could  never  be  overcome 
and  which  would  lead  inevitably  to  a  separation. 
Though  he  held  up  the  great  figure  of  Percy  Bysshe 
Shelley  as  his  ideal  poet,  he  lacked  entirely  Shelley's 


52  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

burning  love  for  humanity,  his  fiery  passion  for 
right  and  equity,  his  ethical  beauty.  That  finest 
quality  of  the  poet,  the  prophetic  strain,  I  failed  to 
see  in  my  friend. 

To  be  a  prophet  means  also  to  be  a  moralist. 
And  the  moralist  is  always  a  hateful  sort  of  individ- 
ual. The  conventional  moralist  is  indeed  the  worst 
enemy  of  the  true  prophet.  At  a  youthful  age 
it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  distinguish  between 
the  two,  and  still  more  so  to  vindicate  the  right  of 
true  ethics  to  exist  in  the  prophet  and  in  the  poet 
without  taking  the  unpleasant  and  unsympathetic 
attitude  of  a  preacher  of  morals.  The  disadvantage 
of  my  position  as  an  opponent  to  X.  was  that  I  was 
the  preacher  of  morals. 

X.  considered  himself,  like  Nietzsche,  "beyond 
good  and  evil."  This  may  mean  that  the  poet, 
the  true  prophet,  has  not  to  take  into  account  the 
morals  of  the  multitude.  So  far  he  is  right.  But 
in  that  case  he  has  to  show  that  he  possesses  his  own 
standard  of  ethical  perfection,  the  power  to  stand 
alone  by  his  own  moral  code,  the  gleam  of  intel- 
lectual beauty  that  may  give  a  new  lead  to  mankind. 
I  could  find  nothing  of  the  sort  in  my  friend.  He 
denied  all  necessity  of  restraint;  the  expression  "a 
good  man"  he  declared  to  be  meaningless;  he  exalted 
hate  against  love;  his  life  was  a  display  of  reckless 
egotism  and  debauchery;  he  drowned  his  wonderful 
talents  in  alcohol.  And  yet  his  admirers  did  not 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  53 

forsake  him.  On  the  contrary,  his  unconvention- 
ality  impressed  them  not  merely  as  the  mark  but  as 
the  prerogative  of  true  genius.  Such  is  the  ten- 
dency of  youth  to  break  conventional  bonds  and  to 
follow  the  prophets  of  Liberty. 

At  first,  one  of  our  circle  resisted  —  one  of  the 
best.  He  was  rewarded  with  a  torrent  of  invective 
in  wild,  passionate  poetry.  The  rest  of  us  did  not 
well  know  the  origin  of  the  quarrel  and  believed  in 
X.,  who  said  he  had  been  cruelly  wronged.  But  it 
was  very  remarkable  that  from  this  time  his  atti- 
tude as  a  critic  changed  and  that  he  condemned 
and  ridiculed  every  new  line  of  that  other  poet  who 
had  dared  to  quarrel  with  him. 

Then  I  felt  that  it  was  to  be  my  turn.  I  per- 
sisted in  writing  in  our  review  what  I  considered 
right  and  true.  And  I  felt  that  by  the  influence  of 
X.  a  spirit  of  animosity  was  awakened.  A  silent 
tension  grew  daily  around  me.  I  got  warnings  of 
a  change  in  the  general  feeling  toward  me  in  our 
literary  circle.  I  expected  an  attack  and  I  thought 
it  wisest  to  make  it  myself. 

I  wrote  an  article  of  rather  sharp  criticism  against 
myself.  It  was  done  in  full  earnest.  Every  author 
can  do  it.  We  all  have  our  moods  of  self-reproach, 
of  self-correction,  in  which  we  sit  trembling  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  our  own  conscience. 

I  wrote  without  pity,  sternly  and  unflinchingly. 
I  analyzed  my  deepest  motives,  I  compared  my 


54  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

avowed  faith  with  my  actual  deeds,  my  high  ideals 
with  my  unsuccessful  attempts.  I  wrote  like  a  well- 
meaning  friend  who,  though  unsparing,  believed 
in  me  and  wanted  me  to  be  what  I  wished  my- 
self to  be.  I  did  not  write  in  a  despondent  or 
morbidly  bitter  mood,  so  there  was  nothing  in  my 
tone  of  that  deadly  poison  of  disbelief  and  distrust 
that  sometimes  makes  an  apparently  gently  written 
page  paralyzing  and  murderous.  It  was  the  sort 
of  criticism  that  I  ought  to  have  welcomed  and 
enjoyed,  however  harsh  in  appearance,  had  it  come 
from  somebody  else.  Moreover,  it  was  well  written, 
a  very  creditable  piece  of  clear  and  fluent  prose. 

Through  the  mediation  of  an  accomplice  in  The 
Hague  I  sent  this  article  to  our  review  with  a  po- 
lite letter,  under  the  assumed  name  of  Lieven  Ny- 
land. 

The  meeting  of  the  editorial  staff  of  the  magazine, 
in  which  the  article  was  discussed  in  my  presence, 
was  for  me  exquisitely  and  delightfully  amusing. 
They  all  took  the  matter  very  seriously,  as  a  most 
unpleasant  event  for  myself,  and  they  did  what  they 
could  to  attenuate  the  blow.  Yet  it  was  only  too 
clear  that  they  enjoyed  that  piece  of  prose  far  better 
than  they  cared  to  show  me. 

"Rather  impudent,"  said  one,  "to  send  this  to 
us!' 

"Not  so  bad,  though,  in  the  matter  of  style," 
said  another,  with  a  glance  toward  me,  to  see  whether 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  55 

I  was  hurt  by  this  partial  compliment  to  my  sup- 
posed foe. 

"Ever  heard  of  this  man?"  asked  X.  But  no- 
body had.  "Of  course  we  won't  take  it,"  he  con- 
tinued. 

"Why  not?"  I  ventured  to  remark. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  would  agree 
to  our  bringing  out  this  article?"  said  X.  in  the  ut- 
most astonishment. 

"Surely  I  do.     It  is  a  good  piece  of  work." 

"That's  fine!  that's  very  fine!"  they  all  exclaimed. 

The  article  was  accepted  with  general  satisfaction, 
my  satisfaction  having  a  very  different  cause  from 
what  they  supposed,  and  theirs  being  concealed  under 
an  assumed  air  of  polite  indignation  and  opposition. 
I  am  sure  they  did  not  believe  then  in  the  sincerity 
of  my  approval.  They  took  it  either  for  a  strata- 
gem to  make  them  refuse  the  article,  or  for  a  piece 
of  posing,  a  sham  magnanimity.  This  certainly 
was  the  case  with  X.,  for,  ever  since  then,  it  has 
been  his  tactics  to  represent  me  as  a  hypocrite,  a 
preacher,  a  poser,  and  a  very  vain  "man.  In  this  way 
he  could  always  explain  away  my  dangerous  sin- 
ce^ity. 

When  the  number  of  the  review  was  issued,  with 
the  article  in  a  conspicuous  place,  I  had  a  good  time, 
all  by  myself.  Nobody,  not  even  my  own  fam- 
ily, knew  the  secret,  except  my  accomplice  in  The 
Hague.  Everybody  expected  me  to  be  very  much 


56  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

depressed  and  beaten  down  by  such  a  violent  attack 
in  my  own  review. 

"How  well  you  bear  it!"  they  said  to  me.  "But 
it  is  an  awful  shame  of  your  staff  to  let  that  thing  go 
into  print.  It  is  low  and  treacherous." 

"But  I  agreed  myself." 

"Of  course.  You  could  not  oppose  it.  But 
they  ought  to  have  refused  it.  It  is  a  great 
shame." 

Then  I  asked  as  many  people  as  I  could  speak  to, 
including  even  the  patients  in  my  clinic,  whether 
they  had  read  the  article  and  what  they  thought 
about  it.  The  notes  I  took  of  their  answers  made 
a  very  interesting  and  instructive  record.  Most 
people,  meaning  to  please  me,  said  that  it  was  an 
abominable  and  worthless  piece  of  writing.  It  was 
clear  to  them  that  the  writer  could  not  even  write 
our  language,  that  he  was  an  arrogant,  ignorant, 
unfeeling  brute,  and  that  his  article  was  rubbish. 
Among  all  the  readers  I  found  only  one  whose  judg- 
ment was  fair  and  right.  This  was  a  young  girl  of 
eighteen,  not  at  all  a  literary  person,  and  as  far  as  I 
knew  not  unkindly  disposed  toward  me  and  my 
work.  She  alone  astonished  and  pleased  me  by  say- 
ing simply: 

"You  must  excuse  me  for  my  frankness,  Doctor, 
but  I  think  the  article  very  good.  That  man  means 
well,  and  in  your  place  I  should  feel  obliged  to  him. 
And  I  think  his  article  is  admirably  written.  It  is 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  57 

a  splendid  piece  of  criticism,  and  I  can  well  under- 
stand that  you  did  not  refuse  it." 

I  shook  her  hand  warmly  and  said:  "This  is  the 
best  praise  I  ever  got  in  my  life."  Then  I  told  her 
that  I  was  the  writer. 

To  all  others,  however,  I  kept  the  secret  carefully. 
Perceiving  the  blindness  and  insincerity  of  so  many 
on  whose  judgment  I  had  laid  value  thus  far,  I 
resolved  to  play  the  trick  a  little  farther. 

I  had  ready  in  manuscript  a  new  work  of  art, 
a  prose  poem,  now  well  known  under  the  title  of 
"Johannes  Viator."  It  was  done  in  a  new  style 
and  was  quite  unlike  anything  I  had  written.  It 
was  a  vigorous  and  ample  vindication  of  my  opinions 
about  the  ethical  mission  of  the  poet.  It  had  in 
it  the  prophetic  strain  and  was  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  opinion  and  -attitude  of  X.  and  his  partisans. 

Of  this  work  I  selected  two  chapters,  character- 
istic of  the  book  as  a  work  of  art,  but  not  yet  dis- 
playing its  whole  tendency,  and  I  sent  them  to 
X.,  the  secretary  of  our  editorial  staff,  as  a  contri- 
bution to  our  review.  I  again  used  the  assumed 
name,  Lieven  Nyland  and  acted  through  the  me- 
diation of  my  accomplice  in  The  Hague.  Soon 
afterward  I  got  a  letter  from  X.  telling  me  that 
he  had  received  a  contribution  from  my  enemy, 
Lieven  Nyland;  that  this  man  proved  to  be  a  very 
remarkable  writer,  and  that  his  work  was  excellent. 
He  hoped  that  my  personal  feelings  would  not 


58  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

induce  me  to  oppose  this  contribution,  though  it 
came  from  a  man  who  had  treated  me  so  severely. 
He  expected  me  to  be  broad-minded  and  mag- 
nanimous. I  asked  him  in  return  to  send  me  the 
manuscript.  As  soon  as  I  got  it  I  locked  it  up  and 
kept  silence.  I  knew  enough. 

At  the  next  meeting  of  our  editorial  staff  there 
was  something  of  a  row. 

"Did  you  not  get  the  Lieven  Nyland  manuscript 
I  sent  you?"  asked  X. 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  said  indifferently. 

"Well,  where  is  it?" 

"Where  is  it?  In  the  hands  of  the  author  I 
suppose." 

"In  the  hands  of  the  author?  What  does  that 
mean?  We  want  it." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  I  replied. 

"  You  may  not  think  so,  but  you  are  prejudiced 
of  course.  It  is  a  very  good  work  indeed,  and  you 
had  no  right  to  send  it  back." 

All  the  others  expressed  their  disapproval  of  my 
high-handed  and  arbitrary  conduct. 

"Well,  then,  gentlemen,  if  you  think  that  work 
so  valuable  and  want  it  so  much  for  our  review, 
you  had  better  try  to  get  it  back  from  the  author." 

After  that  I  left  the  meeting. 

My  accomplice  at  The  Hague,  who  was  a  lady, 
had  given  her  own  address  for  the  Lieven  Nyland 
correspondence.  One  morning,  looking  from  her 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  59 

window,  she  saw,  to  her  great  dismay,  the  well- 
known  figure  of  X.,  accompanied  by  a  devoted 
friend,  coming  down  the  street  toward  her  house. 
She  had  just  time  to  hide  herself  and  to  give  orders 
to  the  servant  that  when  the  gentlemen  came  to 
ask  for  Mr.  Nyland  the  answer  should  be  that 
Mr.  Nyland  was  abroad. 

The  gentlemen  inquired  indeed  after  Mr.  Nyland; 
they  asked  about  his  situation  and  occupations;  they 
wanted  to  know  where  he  was  and  when  he  would 
come  back.  The  servant  could  give  them  but  scant 
information,  and  certainly  not  the  object  for  which 
they  came,  the  so  much  desired  manuscript.  At 
last  they  went  back  disappointed,  and  my  accom- 
plice left  her  hiding  place. 

At  the  next  meeting  of  our  staff  I  told  X.  that  he 
would  lose  his  time  and  his  money  by  hunting  up 
Mr.  Nyland  and  his  manuscript,  because  Lieven 
Nyland  was  an  assumed  name  of  my  own.  I  told 
him  that  the  manuscript  was  safely  locked  up  in 
my  desk  and  that  I  felt  no  inclination  to  publish  it 
in  our  review. 

The  effect  of  my  words  was  very  curious.  In 
the  first  astonishment  X.  did  not  realize  that  he  had 
given  himself  away  entirely,  and  that  I  had  him,  so 
to  say,  in  my  pocket.  His  immediate  feeling  was 
admiration  for  the  successful  trick.  He  patted  me 
on  the  shoulder  and  said:  "Well  done!  Good 
for  you!"  in  full  sincerity.  And  all  the  others,  un- 


60  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

consciously  obedient  to  their  leader's  mind,  compli- 
mented me  warmly. 

This  was  the  last  editorial  meeting  I  attended. 

Very  soon  X.  began  to  see  that  he  had  been  badly 
worsted  in  the  game.  I  suppose  he  expected  me  to 
publish  the  whole  story  and  make  him  and  his 
partisans  ridiculous.  Such  a  thing,  however,  had 
never  entered  my  mind.  What  I  did  was  done  for 
my  own  instruction.  I  had  acquired  the  knowledge 
that  I  wanted.  I  had  got  the  purest  criticism  on 
my  work  that  I  could  wish  for,  and  a  clear  insight 
into  the  state  of  mind  of  X.  So  I  simply  took  my 
dismissal  as  an  editor  of  the  review,  and  published 
my  book  on  my  own  account.  The  truth  about  the 
Lieven  Nyland  incident  became  known  only  to  a 
few  immediately  related  to  it. 

And  then  —  this  is  the  worst  part  of  the  story  — 
X.,  feeling  safe  again  and  seeing  that  I  took  no  ad- 
vantage of  my  position,  filled  a  whole  number  of 
the  review  with  the  most  sordid  and  violent  abuse 
of  me  and  my  new  book.  All  his  pent-up  hatred 
and  jealousy,  all  his  bitterness  and  rancour  he 
poured  out  in  the  most  vulgar  and  brutal  way, 
assisted  by  some  of  his  supporters,  who  went,  of 
course,  still  farther  than  their  master. 

I  was  called  Johannes  Violator  instead  of  Viator; 
my  book  was  called  filth  and  rubbish  which  con- 
tained not  one  single  page  of  merit.  For  months 
at  a  stretch  X.  published  a  series  of  what  he  later 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  61 

called  "ironical  poetry,"  but  what  was  in  fact  the 
lowest  and  most  miserable  kind  of  rhymed  abuse  a 
poet  ever  indulged  in.  In  fact  he  was  then  in  a 
condition  of  irresponsibility  produced  by  constant 
intoxication.  To  those  who  had,  after  his  example, 
complimented  me,  he  explained  later  that  I  had  done 
it  all  out  of  sheer  \anity  and  desire  for  notoriety; 
and  he  has  succeeded  in  maintaining  this  reading  of 
the  case  among  his  admirers  until  this  very  day. 

Relating  the  story  now,  after  twenty  years,  for 
the  sake  of  its  psychological  interest,  I  think  I  am 
to  be  blamed  for  not  having  fought  the  fight  rig- 
orously to  an  end  at  that  time.  I  did  not  defend 
myself  nor  did  I  make  a  legitimate  use  of  the  things 
I  knew  in  order  to  show  the  insincerity  and  worth- 
lessness  of  the  criticism  of  my  antagonist.  My 
attitude  was  that  of  philosophic  pride  disdaining  to 
enter  into  combat  with  antagonists  so  undignified 
and  so  little  responsible  for  their  words.  I  felt  sure 
that  all  people  of  good  taste  and  common  sense 
would  distinguish  on  whose  side  was  the  truth  and 
the  right.  But  in  this  expectation  I  was  sorely 
mistaken.  I  did  not  know  then,  as  I  do  now,  the 
spiritual  servility  of  the  human  mind,  the  general 
desire  of  men  to  submit  to  authority  as  much  in 
purely  aesthetic  matters  as  in  social  activity.  I  had 
not  yet  learned  to  see  mankind  as  essentially  a 
gregarious  race,  submitting  to  any  leadership  that 
declared  itself  with  sufficient  determination,  and 


62  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

unheeding  whether  the  dominance  was  due  to  real 
superiority  or  to  reckless  arrogance. 

X.  was  considered  at  that  time  the  aesthetic 
leader,  not  by  the  great  public  of  course,  but  by 
the  select  few  of  the  younger  generation,  and  his 
wild  outburst  against  me,  his  brutal  condemnation 
of  my  work,  sufficed  to  spoil  my  reputation  as  a 
poet  and  an  artist  for  at  least  twenty  years.  In 
spite  of  the  indignity  of  the  attack  and  the  pitiful 
condition  of  the  critic  himself,  all  respect  for  me  and 
for  my  work  was  entirely  shattered,  and  the  most 
insignificant  writers  felt  themselves  entitled  to  speak 
of  it  with  utter  contempt. 

To  this  original  attack  and  to  my  deplorable 
neglect  of  a  vigorous  self-defence  I  can  trace  back  all 
my  subsequent  difficulties  not  only  in  literary  mat- 
ters but  also  in  social  reform.  I  had  seriously  weak- 
ened my  position  and  had  given  occasion  to  every 
opponent  to  make  sport  of  me. 

X.  afterward  made  amends  in  private,  never 
openly.  After  his  recovery  from  the  malady  caused 
by  his  debauchery  he  succeeded  in  reestablishing, 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  his  literary  influence 
and  position.  He  became  an  ordinary,  fashionable 
critic  and  reviewer  of  literary  art.  He  still  conducts 
his  review.  His  aberrations  are  all  forgiven,  though 
he  never  tried  to  retract  or  correct  them.  As  a 
poet  he  is  more  popular  than  he  was  in  his  best 
time,  and  few  people  are  able  to  see  that  his  literary 


A  LITERARY  EXPERIMENT  63 

powers  have  left  him,  and  that  because  of  his  lack 
of  self-restraint  he  never  deserved  the  name  of  great 
poet  and  spiritual  leader. 

This  was  the  great  lesson  I  had  to  learn :  that  man- 
kind wants  authority,  even  in  spiritual  matters;  that 
the  great  majority  follow  the  few,  and  that  those 
few  follow  the  leader  who  energetically  maintains 
his  superiority  and  fights  for  his  position.  And  this 
also  I  learned:  that  we  should  not  be  too  superior, 
too  disdainful  of  self-defence,  or  too  Christian-like, 
too  generous  and  forgiving,  especially  when  we  have 
to  defend  our  art,  our'  ideas,  which  are  general 
and  belong  to  mankind.  For  the  unscrupulous  will 
take  advantage  of  us,  and  it  is  not  only  ourselves 
but  mankind  that  we  are  thereby  causing  to  suffer. 

I  have  been  too  much  of  a  Tolstoyan.  And  I 
made  Tolstoy's  mistake  in  my  experiments  for  social 
reform  with  the  same  undesirable  results,  as  I  will 
presently  relate. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CURING    BY    SUGGESTION 

I   HAVE    mentioned  the  fact  that  when  I  was 
a  boy  of   fourteen  I  suffered  for  some  months 
from    an    ulcerous   inflammation   of  the    eyes. 
My  parents  took  me  to  our  specialists,  but  without 
any  result.     Seeing  no  betterment  and  hearing  the 
report  of  wonderful  cures  effected  by  a  certain  un- 
titled  and  unaccredited  doctor,  they  resolved  to  try 
him  —  and  I  won't  blame  them  for  it. 

This  doctor  was  a  quack,  an  ignorant  old  fellow 
who  examined  his  eye-sore  patients  with  a  huge  cigar 
in  his  mouth;  he  had  a  row  of  mysterious  bottles 
on  his  table,  with  big  Roman  figures  on  the  labels, 
but  they  all  probably  contained  the  same  stuff. 

He  said  that  he  would  give  my  eyes  "beefsteak" 
in  order  to  strengthen  them,  and  he  bathed  the  eyes 
with  some  cool  liquids  from  the  bottles.  More- 
over, he  prescribed  salt  to  be  taken  in  great  quan- 
tities, because  salt  "  preserves,"  as  he  expressed  it. 
And  yet,  wonderful  enough,  I  never  left  his  dark, 
dingy,  crowded  little  consultation  room  without 
great  relief.  My  eyes  became  better. 

64 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  65 

The  conversation  in  that  room,  during  the  long 
hours  that  I  sat  there  and  waited  and  listened,  turned 
upon  the  wonderful  cures  effected  by  the  old  quack, 
and  the  infinite  harm  done  by  the  great,  renowned 
doctors  of  the  medical  profession.  Every  one  of 
the  sufferers  had  a  tale  to  tell  about  an  eye  spoiled 
or  lost  by  the  operations  and  the  vicious  poisons 
used  by  the  men  of  official  science.  When  his 
"beefsteak"  and  salt  did  not  benefit  the  clients  who 
had  first  visited  the  regular  doctors,  the  little  old 
quack  cleverly  said  that  it  was  only  because  they 
came  too  late  for  him  to  undo  the  harm  inflicted 
by  his  titled  colleagues.  My  relatives  came  to 
believe  later  that  the  little  scar  left  on  my  eye  was 
due  to  the  scientific  treatment,  and  would  not  be 
there  if  I  had  gone  first  to  the  quack. 

That  the  old  man  cured  some  of  his  patients  there 
is  no  doubt,  however  many  eyes  he  spoiled.  Cer- 
tainly he  did  to  me  what  the  learned  specialists  had 
not  been  able  to  do.  Twelve  years  later,  when  I 
went  to  study  the  method  of  Dr.  Liebeault  at  Nancy, 
I  learned  what  power  it  was  that  worked  these 
wonders. 

Dr.  Liebeault  used  this  same  power,  but  scientifi- 
cally. He  gave  no  "beefsteak"  and  salt,  but  he 
treated  every  patient  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
others,  the  conversation  always  turning  upon  the 
wonderful  cures  effected,  though  with  much  less 
abuse  of  official  science,  for  Dr.  Liebeault  never  de- 


66  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

nounced  his  colleagues.  He  thus  produced  in  his 
consultation  room  a  suggestive  atmosphere. 

When  Liebeault  retired  as  a  practitioner,  in  1891, 
a  dinner  was  given  in  Nancy  in  his  honour.  Phy- 
sicians came  from  all  parts  of  Europe  to  honour  the 
founder  of  the  famous  school  of  Nancy,  the  initiator 
of  suggestion  as  a  method  of  curing  disease.  A 
bronze  statue,  representing  David  and  Goliath,  was 
presented  to  him,  and  the  modest  man  was  assured 
of  the  veneration  and  gratitude  of  thousands  of 
disciples. 

And  yet  the  way  in  which  Liebeault  was  treated 
by  his  academical  colleagues  is  thus  described  by 
Dr.  Hilger: 

"Though  Liebeault  never  indulged  in  complaint  or  bitter- 
uess  on  account  of  the  neglect  he  suffered  from  his  aca  lemical 
fellow-workers,  and  only  quietly  insisted  that  his  results  should 
be  investigated  thoroughly  and  without  prejudice,  they  had 
nothing  for  him  but  a  contemptuous  shrug  of  the  shoulders 
and  shake  of  the  head.  For  fourteen  years  the  patient  doctor 
worked  on,  under  neglect,  contempt,  and  derision,  until  in  1880 
an  old  college  friend  of  his,  Dr.  Lorrain,  visited  him  and  fixed 
the  attention  of  Professor  Bernheim  on  his  remarkable  cures. 
Bernheim,  who  at  first  was  as  skeptical  as  the  others  and  could 
hardly  suppress  a  pitying  smile  at  his  first  visit,  became  soon 
deeply  interested  in  what  he  saw,  and  then  felt  the  greatest 
admiration  for  the  good  and  simple  man  who  had  endured  for 
so  many  years  the  foolish  misjudgment  of  his  colleagues  with- 
out one  word  of  bitterness. " 

Then  Bernheim  wrote  his  standard  work  on  the 
application  of  suggestion  to  the  cure  of  diseases. 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  67 

One  instance  of  his  application  is  that  of  a  cure 
effected  by  Professor  Hirt,  the  famous  neurologist 
of  Breslau,  in  1890,  on  the  son  of  the  Privy  Coun- 
sellor, Professor  Dr.  Klopsch.  The  boy  had  been 
suffering  for  eight  years  from  attacks  of  coughing, 
which  were  so  bad  that  the  patient  weakened  and 
became  exhausted;  he  could  not  attend  school,  nor 
follow  any  regular  occupation;  rest  at  night  was  im- 
possible for  the  family  as  well  as  for  the  sufferer. 
Every  method  of  treatment  was  tried  in  vain  - 
electricity,  baths,  cauterization  of  the  nose  —  and 
finally  the  best  authorities  declared  it  a  case  of  in- 
curable disease  of  the  lungs. 

One  afternoon  Professor  Hirt  tried  the  method 
of  Liebeault;  by  a  few  passes  of  the  hands  and  by 
verbal  suggestion  he  brought  the  patient  into  a 
light  slumber  and  assured  him  that  he  would  sleep 
well  that  night  and  that  the  cough  would  stop. 
This  one  simple  treatment  sufficed  for  a  complete 
cure.  The  boy  slept  that  night,  his  cough  stopped, 
and  never  reappeared.  He  became  a  completely 
healthy  man. 

If  this  boy  had  been  surrounded  by  people  who 
believed  the  newspaper  advertisements  and  had 
talkative  neighbours,  and  had  not  been  treated  by 
a  broad-minded  man  like  Professor  Hirt,  the  parents 
would  have  dismissed  the  doctor  and  spent  their 
money  on  patent-medicines;  then  they  would  have 
hunted  up  all  sorts  of  quacks,  faith-healers,  and 


68  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

more  or  less  obscure  miracle-workers  until  they 
struck  one  who  did  by  accident  what  Professor  Hirt 
did  by  scientific  knowledge.  And  the  result  would 
have  followed  that  the  parents,  and  the  neigh- 
bours, the  boy  himself,  and  hundreds  of  people 
would  have  testified  to  the  wonderful  powers  of 
that  quack  who  could  cure  by  one  stroke  a  case 
considered  hopeless  by  the  greatest  authorities. 
And  no  derisive  denial  could  have  had  the  slightest 
effect  upon  one  of  the  many  who  had  seen  it. 

Doctors  talk  of  "the  dangers  of  suggestion." 
But  the  real  danger,  if  anywhere,  lies  in  the  use 
of  suggestion  by  the  quacks,  and  in  its  unstudied 
denial  by  men  of  science. 

This  instance  happened  nineteen  years  ago.  The 
attitude  of  the  medical  profession  of  Europe  is  wiser 
now.  My  colleague,  Van  Renterghem  —  who  twen- 
ty-three years  ago  started  with  me  the  first  clinic 
in  Amsterdam  for  the  treatment  of  diseases  by 
suggestion,  according  to  Dr.  Liebeault's  method 
(called  Psycho-therapy  by  us  for  the  first  time)  — 
sees  more  patients  now  than  ever  and  finds  no 
opposition  worth  mentioning  among  his  fellow- 
doctors.  Cases  were  referred  to  our  clinic  by  our 
colleagues;  we  even  had  several  doctors  as  patients; 
and  we  treated  successfully  the  wife  of  one  of  the 
professors  at  the  University  of  Amsterdam.  A 
more  remarkable  case  was  treated  lately  by  Van 
Renterghem  at  a  university  clinic,  where  a  serious 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  69 

operation  was  performed  without  any  anaesthetic 
except  suggestion.  The  same  change  in  attitude  is 
observed  in  Germany,  England,  Sweden,  and  other 
countries,  where  the  method  has  been  adopted  by 
men  of  the  highest  standing. 

In  America  there  seems  to  be  a  curious  mixture 
of  backwardness  and  advancement.  Psychotherapy 
was  studied  in  America  years  ago,  and  yet  the  med- 
ical profession  as  a  whole  seems  to  be  either  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  subject,  or  indifferent  to  it.  The 
only  doctor  of  high  standing  who  took  up  the  prac- 
tice in  New  York  tells  me  that  his  colleagues  have 
just  ignored  the  whole  matter,  with  an  attitude  of 
"lofty  indifference."  One  of  them  said:  "Doctor, 
if  you  would  only  discover  something  about  a  brain 
tumour  or  describe  some  organic  cord  lesion,  that 
would  really  be  doing  something  worth  while." 

When  I  lectured  in  a  city  of  the  Middle  West 
before  an  audience  of  university  students  and  re- 
minded them  of  the  errors  of  official  science  and 
the  danger  in  entirely  denying  the  cures  of  quacks 
instead  of  investigating  them,  a  doctor  stood  up, 
white  with  indignation,  and  said  in  a  tremulous 
voice:  "Sir,  you  are  trying  to  make  quacks  of  all 
of  them!" 

This  sort  of  emotional  opposition  is  raised  to  its 
highest  pitch  when  one  dares  to  maintain  that 
suggestion  may  have  influence  on  diseases  generally 
called  organic,  physical,  or  anatomical.  The  case 


70  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

of  the  coughing  boy  will  not  make  the  conservative 
doctor  angry.  He  will  only  say:  "That  was  but 
a  nervous  trouble;  I  also  have  seen  such  cases  and 
cures."  But  when  it  comes  to  the  possibility  of 
curing  an  inflammation  of  the  eye,  an  ulcer  of  the 
leg,  or  malaria,  or  pneumonia  —  this  is  downright 
heresy. 

If  we  admit  that  the  trouble  of  the  boy  was  en- 
tirely nervous,  had  he  therefore  no  right  to  be  helped 
in  the  only  way  that  could  help  him?  There  are 
thousands  of  patients  who,  like  this  boy,  can  be 
helped  only  by  suggestive  treatment.  And  be- 
cause the  medical  profession  considers  this  treat- 
ment below  its  dignity,  who  can  blame  the  patients 
when  they  go  to  the  quacks;  and  who  can  blame  the 
quacks  when  they  eagerly  make  use  of  the  advan- 
tage given  them  by  scientific  prejudices,  and  practise 
the  treatment  that  cures,  though  they  do  not  know 
how  and  why?  The  heaviest  responsibility  falls 
upon  the  men  who  ought  to  know  better  —  the  dog- 
matists among  men  of  science  —  and  it  is  nothing 
but  dogmatic  superstition  to  deny,  a  priori,  the  cure 
of  organic  diseases  by  suggestion. 

It  can  be  safely  maintained  that  where  there  is 
any  chance  of  cure  at  all,  that  chance  may  be  in- 
creased by  the  use  of  suggestion. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  doctor  never  cures  a  dis- 
ease; he  enables  the  body  to  cure  itself  by  assisting 
it  in  the  struggle  against  hostile  influences  or  dis- 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  71 

turbances.  Even  the  surgeon  does  no  more  than 
remove  obstacles;  the  cells  of  the  body  do  the  really 
curative  work.  And  in  this  work  they  are  directed 
and  assisted  by  what  we  call  the  psyche,  that  part  of 
the  body  which  is  not  directly  perceptible  by  the 
senses. 

There  is  no  breach  between  physical  and  psy- 
chical functions;  all  are  in  constantly  related  action 
and  counteraction.  It  has  been  demonstrated  that 
sight  of  food  by  a  dog  immediately  stimulates  the 
secretion  of  the  different  glands  necessary  for  the 
digestion  of  that  special  kind  of  food,  not  only  in 
the  mouth  but  also  in  the  stomach.  Now,  if  the 
visual  image  alone  can  have  such  very  material 
effects,  in  such  appropriate  selection,  what  can  be 
the  scientific  objection  to  the  possibility  of  the  cells 
being  stimulated  in  their  curative  work,  appropri- 
ately and  effectively,  by  imagination,  by  emotion, 
or  by  volition  ? 

This  is  the  way  in  which  suggestion  works.  By 
verbal  persuasion,  by  exciting  the  imagination  of 
the  patient,  by  raising  his  expectation,  by  giving 
him  confidence,  by  strengthening  his  own  power 
of  volition,  the  idea  of  cure  is  fixed  in  his  mind  and 
the  curative  action  of  the  cells  is  increased  and 
lengthened  —  even  in  such  a  "  physical"  case  as 
a  broken  leg,  or  an  ulcer,  or  a  wound.  In  this 
there  is  nothing  unscientific,  nothing  contradictory 
to  our  present  knowledge  of  the  human  body.  In 


72  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

fact,  psychical  things  are  just  as  real  as  physical 
things;  but  as  the  chain  is  long  and  the  links 
are  very  complicatedly  connected,  we  are  not  ac- 
customed to  realize  the  first  influence  of  one  upon 
another. 

There  are  certainly  dangers  in  suggestive  treat- 
ment. I  know  of  unscrupulous  doctors  who,  for 
the  sake  of  experiment,  have  entirely  enslaved 
their  patients  and  even  tried,  in  order  to  see  how 
far  suggestion  could  lead,  to  make  them  do  abnor- 
mal and  immoral  things.  They  ordered  them,  for 
instance,  to  steal  some  object.  And  the  theft  was 
committed  without  the  criminal  knowing  who  put 
this  idea  into  his  head.  This  sort  of  human  vivisec- 
tion cannot  be  too  severely  condemned.  I  make 
it  a  strict  rule  never  to  treat  a  patient  against  his 
will,  nor  to  give  any  suggestion-  that  might  lead  to 
abnormal  consequences,  and  never  to  weaken  his 
will-power  or  lessen  his  independence.  The  patient 
ought  never  to  be  put  into  a  deeper  sleep  than  is 
necessary  for  effective  treatment,  and  he  must  be 
taught  to  become  independent  of  the  doctor.  The 
doctor  is  only  the  guide  who  indicates  the  way  to 
self-cure,  and  should  not  step  in  unless  the  patient 
is  absolutely  unable  to  get  out  of  trouble  himself. 
Some  hold  that  it  is  always  better  to  bring  about 
the  deepest  form  of  sleep  and  the  highest  degree 
of  suggestibility;  they  believe  that  such  a  complete 
control  of  the  patient  enables  them  always  to  restore 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  73 

a  perfect  normal  balance  after  the  treatment.  But 
I  have  found  that  this  complete  control  generally 
leaves  a  greater  aptitude  to  being  controlled,  and 
in  this  way  diminishes  the  stability  of  the  psychic 
balance. 

Psycho-therapy  is  dangerous  in  the  hands  of  un- 
skilled, ignorant,  or  unscrupulous  persons,  be  they 
doctors  or  laymen.  But  is  this  not  the  case  in  all 
branches  of  the  medical  profession?  Is  there  no 
danger  in  poisonous  drugs,  in  chloroform,  and  the 
knife?  Do  we  not  trust  ourselves  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  surgeon,  and  is  there  not  just  as  great 
a  chance  of  his  being  ignorant  or  unskilful  or  un- 
scrupulous? It  maybe  replied,  not  unjustly,  that 
we  can  more  easily  find  a  reliable  surgeon  than  a 
trustworthy  expert  in  psycho-therapy.  But  if  this 
be  so,  who  is  to  blame?  A  few  centuries  ago  sur- 
gery was  considered  below  the  dignity  of  a  physician, 
and  left  to  the  barber,  the  market-crier,  and  the 
quack.  The  poor  patients  paid  the  penalty,  but 
who  was  to  blame?  So  long  as  official  medical  sci- 
ence refuses  to  study  the  science  of  psycho-therapy, 
with  all  its  powers  and  dangers,  they  will  leave 
the  field  to  the  mountebank,  the  fake,  and  the 
quack. 

The  mischief  done  by  ignorance  of  psychology  — 
the  ignorance  of  well-established  facts  by  men  who 
ought  to  know  —  is  enormous. 

It  is  now  more  than  nine  years  since  Binet  pub- 


74  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

lished  his  standard  work  on  Suggestibility,  and  yet 
I  found  the  most  crude  notions  prevailing  in  Amer- 
ica on  this  important  subject.  Suggestion  is  still 
confused  with  hypnotism.  Suggestibility  is  still 
looked  upon  as  an  abnormal  and  morbid  quality 
found  only  in  hysterical  women,  more  or  less  con- 
nected with  spiritualism,  mysticism,  and  other  dis- 
reputable isms  —  therefore  better  left  alone  and 
unstudied. 

Binet  experimented  with  healthy  children  of  an 
ordinary  school  class.  He  found  that  suggestibil- 
ity —  the  aptitude  of  taking  and  realizing  sugges- 
tions —  is  a  normal  faculty  of  the  human  mind,  but 
greatest  in  youth.  He  was  able  to  express  this 
faculty  for  every  child  in  a  certain  figure,  which  he 
called  the  coefficient  of  suggestibility.  In  one  of 
his  remarkable  experiments  with  these  children  he 
submitted  to  their  attention  several  familiar  ob- 
jects, such  as  a  stamp,  a  coin,  a  picture,  a  portrait, 
and  then  asked  them  to  describe  these  objects  from 
memory.  He  found  that  by  a  certain  impressive 
way  of  questioning  he  was  able  to  falsify  their 
memory  to  such  an  extent  that  the  great  majority 
described  things  which  they  had  not  seen.  He 
asked  place  and  date  of  the  postmark  that  was  on 
the  stamp  —  though  the  real  stamp  was  clean  and 
unused  —  and  more  than  98  per  cent,  of  the  children 
were  unable  to  resist  this  mild  form  of  suggestion: 
they  described  the  postmark  which  they  had  not 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  75 

seen  at  all.  Of  143  children,  only  two  had  enough 
independence  of  judgment  to  answer  directly  in  the 
negative.  The  141  others  had  not  the  originality 
to  rely  on  their  own  observation  and  memory,  and 
not  the  courage  to  suppose  that  the  professor  would 
ask  a  misleading  question. 

You  are,  in  your  turn,  invited  to  reflect  on  what 
is  happening  daily  in  courts  and  in  police  head- 
quarters when  some  of  those  whose  suggestibility 
coefficient  is  high  —  some  of  the  98  per  cent,  non- 
resistants —  are  submitted  to  the  "mild  sugges- 
tions" of  a  questioning  police  officer,  a  coroner,  a 
judge,  or  a  lawyer.  I  remember  quite  well  that 
when  I  was  a  boy  of  ten  I  was  questioned  into  a 
guilt,  being  entirely  innocent.  And  though  it  may 
be  true  that  suggestibility  lessens  in  riper  years,  we 
may  be  quite  sure  that  at  least  50  per  cent,  of  the 
average  of  men  retain  enough  of  it  to  be  entirely 
unreliable  as  witnesses  under  the  suggestive  pressure 
of  a  headstrong  policeman,  a  pompous  judge,  or  a 
shrewd  lawyer. 

And  your  juries  —  is  not  the  jury  the  safeguard 
of  democracy,  the  pillar  of  justice?  We  have  no 
juries  in  Holland,  and  I  never  met  a  Hollander  who 
wished  to  have  that  democratic  institution  back. 
The  makers  of  our  constitution  have  cleverly  fore- 
stalled this  result  of  modern  psychology,  that  the 
coefficient  of  suggestibility  of  a  body  of  men  like  a 
jury  is  greater  than  that  of  the  best  individuals 


76  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

among  them.     The  judgment  of  one  judge  is  gen- 
erally more  reliable  than  that  of  a  jury. 

The  soul  of  a  child,  and  in  lesser  degree  of  the 
grown-up  man,  can  be  shaped  by  suggestive  in- 
fluence in  any  form;  it  can  be  bent,  crooked,  twisted, 
adulterated  —  morally  and  mentally  —  to  an  extent 
depending  on  its  degree  of  plasticity,  its  inborn 
original  force  of  resistance,  and  the  power  of  sug- 
gestive forces  at  work.  The  definition  of  sugges- 
tibility, as  given  by  Bernheim,  is  "the  aptitude  of 
the  mind  to  receive  an  idea,  and  the  tendency  to 
transform  it  into  action." 

Now,  every  phenomenon  of  consciousness  (emo- 
tion, expectation,  imagination,  reflection,  volition) 
is  a  suggestion;  and  there  is  a  rule  in  modern  psy- 
chology which  says  that  every  idea  tends  to  become 
active.  So  the  latent  possibilities  of  effect,  to  good 
or  to  evil,  are  always  there. 

Another  general  mistake  is  to  consider  sugges- 
tibility as  an  entire  mental  and  pyschical  quality, 
and  to  confuse  it  with  credulity.  But  suggestibility 
is  not  credulity.  I  have  had  very  skeptical  patients, 
who  —  mentally  —  did  not  believe  in  suggestion 
at  all.  They  were  entirely  incredulous  —  and  yet 
they  could  feel  physical  relief  by  suggestion  easily 
enough.  Nor  is  there  always  exact  relation  between 
strong-mindedness,  robustness  of  health,  inde- 
pendence of  character,  and  that  important  plas- 
ticity which  we  call  suggestibility. 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  77 

Bernheim  has  succeeded  in  accelerating  or  slacken- 
ing the  pulse  of  a  normal  individual  simply  by  count- 
ing to  him.  The  pulse  was  registered  by  the  sphyg- 
mograph  —  without  the  person  seeing  it  —  and 
it  quickened  from  80  to  90  when  Bernheim  counted 
1 20  a  minute,  and  it  fell  to  74  or  73  when  he  counted 
60  a  minute. 

Not  only  the  personal  will  of  another  but  also 
routine,  expectation,  fear,  and  imagination  can  act 
as  suggestions  and  have  physical  effects. 

The  method  of  Dr.  Liebeault  is  based  on  the  fact 
that  plasticity  is  greater  during  sleep,  or  even  light 
slumber,  and  that  the  physical,  curative  effect  of 
suggestion  is  increased  when  you  succeed  in  reaching 
the  patient's  mind,  or  soul,  during  his  sleep  or  half- 
slumber.  That  this  is  possible  is  known  to  every 
mother  who  talks  to  her  child  in  half-slumber  or 
even  in  deep  sleep.  She  can  often  get  an  answer 
from  a  child  apparently  unconscious,  and  implant 
a  simple  idea  or  a  command  which  will  be  duly  fol- 
lowed, though  the  child  seems  to  have  wholly  for- 
gotten it  after  waking  up.  In  old  age  many  pe- 
culiarities of  the  child  come  back,  and  I  have  ob- 
served old  people  sometimes  accepting  suggestions 
with  a  childlike  docility,  though  of  course  not  with 
the  physical  plasticity  of  youth. 

Old  people,  though  in  all  appearance  still  inde- 
pendent and  responsible,  are  often  entirely  under 
the  suggestive  influence  of  some  masterful  or  in- 


78  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

terested  person.  I  have  seen  cases  of  rich  old  men, 
apparently  normal,  who  acted  entirely  against  their 
original  character,  against  their  true  inclinations, 
against  their  own  interests,  under  the  influence  of 
some  nurse  or  attendant  who  had  succeeded  in 
mastering  the  master's  mind.  In  such  cases  the 
intriguer  knew  how  to  apply  his  suggestions  so  as 
to  rule  at  last  the  whole  household,  cheating  the 
legitimate  heirs  out  of  their  rights  or  bringing  about 
a  marriage  contract. 

Here  again  we  see  the  abuse  of  a  powerful  and  dan- 
gerous instrument  in  the  hands  of  an  unscrupulous 
person.  And  there  is  no  possibility  of  guarding  soci- 
ety against  this,  unless  these  forces  are  thoroughly 
studied  and  methodically  handled  by  the  men  of 
science. 

I  was  often  asked  what  I  thought  of  all  the  various 
movements,  now  springing  up  everywhere  in  Amer- 
ica, all  more  or  less  connected  and  held  together 
by  the  great  principle  that  the  Mind  can  heal  the 
Body  —  such  as  the  Emmanuel  movement,  Chris- 
tian Science,  faith  cure,  the  now  extinguished  move- 
ment of  the  Zionists  of  John  Alexander  Dowie,  and 
several  more  or  less  secret  associations.  My  answer 
was  that  religion  and  science  to  me  are  one,  and 
that  I  must  consider  all  these  movements  to  be 
aberrations  in  so  far  as  they  deviate  from  the  great 
common  scientific  unity  of  human  wisdom.  But 
in  the  same  way  as  the  Church  must  be  held  re- 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  79 

sponsible  for  all  heresies  —  because  it  was  narrow, 
blind,  and  dogmatic,  instead  of  alive  and  universal 
—  so  our  modern  science  is  the  direct  cause  of  all 
these  aberrations,  because  it  has  been  dogmatic  and 
prejudiced. 

The  Emmanuel  movement  may  keep  contact  with 
science,  yet  it  is  not  scientific  and  would  be  super- 
fluous if  science  were  what  it  ought  to  be.  The 
other  movements  mentioned  are  all  tinged  by  the 
influence  of  some  powerful  —  but  not  always  well- 
balanced  or  overscrupulous  —  personality.  This 
means  suggestion,  personal  suggestion,  spreading 
over  hundreds  and  thousands,  making  use  of  the 
gregarious  quality  of  mankind. 

Man  is  a  herd-animal,  and  suggestibility  is  a 
necessary  condition  of  the  gregarious  habit.  This 
enables  some  individuals  of  a  masterful,  energetic 
character,  even  without  really  great  qualities,  to 
become  the  leaders  of  numerous  followers,  and  often 
the  healers  by  suggestion. 

These  movements  are  extremely  deplorable,  be- 
cause they  generally  bring  a  sort  of  spiritual  des- 
potism, servility,  and  fanaticism,  and  because  they 
lead  thousands  and  thousands  astray  from  the  safe 
ways  of  universal  science. 

But  it  is  entirely  futile  to  combat  these  people 
simply  by  haughty  contempt.  Their  cures  are  facts, 
sometimes,  and  science  can  do  their  creed  and  their 
leaders  no  greater  service  than  by  stupid  denial. 


8o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

The  only  way  to  correct  these  aberrations  is  to  use 
their  weapons  better  than  they  do.  So  long  as  the 
doctors  doggedly  stick  to  their  drugs  and  pills,  to 
their  electricity  and  operations,  denying  and  neg- 
lecting the  psychical  treatment,  just  so  long  will 
quacks  and  faith-healers  and  the  like  flourish,  to 
the  detriment  of  mankind.  And  patent  medicines 
will  enrich  their  advertisers  just  so  long  as  the  power 
of  suggestion  is  not  understood.  Any  advertise- 
ment is  a  suggestion.  Repeat  it  sufficiently  and  it 
will  tend  to  become  action  in  the  reader.  He  can't 
resist;  he  will  try  it,  if  only  for  once. 

But  expectation  is  also  a  very  strong  suggestion. 
What  a  sufferer  has  read  about  the  pills  or  drugs, 
what  some  friend  or  neighbour  or  relative  has  told 
him  about  their  wonderful  effect  —  that  will  be  the 
result,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  He  will  experi- 
ence relief,  perhaps  a  total  cure,  and  his  testimonial 
will  help  to  enforce  the  suggestion  on  others.  Let 
the  doctors  thunder  against  these  cures  and  call 
them  the  result  of  imagination;  what  is  the  use? 
"Let  it  be  imagination!"  said  a  patient  to  a  doctor. 
"If  it  cures  me,  when  you  could  not,  then  I  prefer 
imagination!"  Look  at  the  tremendous  sums  spent 
on  advertisements:  you  may  be  sure  they  pay,  but 
it  is  the  suffering  public  that  pays.  And  they  would 
certainly  rebel,  if  the  results  did  not  reinforce  the 
suggestion. 

Even  the  doctors  themselves  are  sometimes  dupes. 


CURING  BY  SUGGESTION  81 

Every  year  scores  of  new  proprietary  medicines  come 
from  the  chemical  manufactories,  endorsed  by  a 
number  of  favourable  testimonials  from  physicians. 
After  some  time  they  are  forgotten  and  replaced 
by  something  else  with  still  more  striking  endorse- 
ments. Are  these  physicians  all  bought  to  give  false 
testimonials?  No;  but  nobody  thinks  of  the  part 
that  suggestion  plays.  Nobody,  not  even  the  doc- 
tor himself,  asks  for  test-conditions  which  exclude 
suggestive  influence.  Expectation  gives  the  first 
suggestion;  a  favourable  result  based  thereon  en- 
forces it;  and  advertisements  do  the  rest  —  exactly 
the  same  as  with  patent  medicines.  The  difference 
is  in  the  long  chemical  formula  and  the  scientific 
label. 

Psycho-therapy  is  no  panacea.  It  is  only  an 
accessory  force  which  must  be  combined  with  sur- 
gery, hygiene,  electro-therapy,  hydro-therapy,  and 
the  rest. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  American  science,  which 
counts  so  many  illustrious  names  in  all  branches, 
will  soon  atone  for  the  long  years  of  prejudice  and 
neglect,  protect  society  from  the  dangers  of  sug- 
gestive influence,  and  serve  it  by  its  wonderful 
powers. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    SOME    FRIENDS 

A  PER  my  first  lecture  in  London,  on  psycho- 
therapy, a  lady  wanted  to  speak  to  me  and 
invited  me  to  her  home  in  the  country. 
This  home  proved  to  be  one  of  those  magnificent 
country-seats  which  may  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  highest  achievements  of  culture  and  refinement 
to  which  human  civilization  has  attained.  A  splen- 
did house,  built  in  noble  style,  furnished  with  ex- 
quisite taste,  containing  priceless  works  of  art  and 
an  unlimited  number  of  books.  It  displayed  quiet 
luxury,  which,  without  extravagance,  afforded  not 
only  comfort  but  also  real  intellectual  and  artistic 
delights.  There  was  nothing  to  shock  the  eye;  a 
well-established  order,  a  truly  aristocratic  atmos- 
phere, the  evidences  of  self-control,  and  of  mental 
labour  and  healthy  sport  were  at  hand  to  balance 
all  the  dangers  of  wealth. 

This  beautiful  home  seemed  indeed  to  come  as 
near  human  perfection  and  the  earthly  paradise  as 
man  could  hope  for.  Yet,  notwithstanding  its  daz- 
zling appearance  of  beauty  and  happiness,  I  never 

82 


INFLUENCE  OF  SOME  FRIENDS          83 

forgot  that  it  could  not  be  built  on  foundations  of 
equity  and  justice.  I  knew  that,  at  the  bottom  of  this 
glorious  estate,  there  must  exist  something  rotten, 
even  though  it  could  not  be  perceived,  in  the  stately 
manor  or  in  the  thousands  of  acres  around  it,  or 
in  the  seemingly  happy  and  contented  population  — 
just  as  I  know  that  the  same  must  be  the  case  in  all 
that  the  powerful  English  nation  has  achieved  and 
in  all  that  the  still  more  powerful  American  na- 
tion is  going  to  achieve.  Piracy,  parasitism,  clever 
extortion  is  at  the  bottom  of  great  ownership. 
Thousands  of  poor  wretches  have  to  pay,  with  all 
the  miseries  of  a  sordid,  incomplete  life,  for  the 
perfection  of  these  few.  I  knew  this,  and  I  said  it. 
This  will  not  be  considered  exactly  the  right  sort 
of  conversation  for  a  week-end  guest  at  an  English 
country  house.  It  might  not  seem  likely  that  the 
invitation  would  be  repeated.  Yet  it  was  repeated. 

During  the  time  of  the  Boer  War,  which  was  a 
terrible  time  for  a  Hollander  who  had  beloved  Eng- 
lish friends,  I  wrote  a  letter  to  that  same  hostess  of 
mine,  who  belonged  to  the  highest  English  aristoc- 
racy and  of  course  to  the  Tory  side,  a  letter  so  free- 
spoken  that  a  friend  of  mine  to  whom  I  showed  it 
exclaimed:  "If  she  stands  that,  she  must  be  a  very 
extraordinary  woman." 

And  she  stood  it,  for  she  is  a  very  extraordinary 
woman  indeed.  It  hurt  her  grievously,  and  so  it 
did  me,  for  there  is  nothing  so  painful  as  to  see  how 


84  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

the  deepest  friendship  cannot  prevent  the  deepest 
misunderstanding.  Yet  it  brought  no  separation, 
no  animosity.  Our  conclusive  sentiment  was  that 
of  Professor  Richet,  who  exclaimed  at  the  occasion 
of  that  horrible  war:  "Pauvres  etres  humains!" 
Poor  human  brutes!  entangled  in  error  and  mis- 
understanding, killing  each  other,  killing  poor  in- 
nocent women  and  children,  convinced  of  the  jus- 
tice of  their  cause  on  either  side.  Error  and  mis- 
understanding —  these  are  indeed  the  common 
enemies  we  have  to  fight.  And  to  that  tremendous 
struggle  is  devoted  the  entire  life  and  strength  of 
Lady  Welby,  my  hostess  at  the  magnificent  country 
house. 

Though  she  is  now  over  seventy,  and  frail  and 
ailing,  she  never  relaxes  but  continues  her  work 
with  unbroken  energy.  After  the  death  of  her 
husband  she  left  the  manor,  where  she  had  to  fulfil 
her  duties  as  the  wife  of  a  wealthy  English  aristocrat, 
and  she  retired  to  a  smaller  house  with  her  books 
and  her  papers,  sparing  all  the  strength  left  to  her 
for  her  great  task,  seeing  nobody  but  those  whom 
she  hopes  to  interest  in  her  work  and  those  who  are 
to  benefit  by  it. 

Forty  years  ago,  while  living  in  an  atmosphere  of 
courtly  splendour,  traditional  state  and  formal 
religion,  this  woman,  who  was  of  a  deeply  religious 
nature,  struck  upon  this  great  truth,  the  funda- 
mental truth  of  the  present  period  in  human  history 


INFLUENCE  OF  SOME  FRIENDS  85 

—  that  we  human  creatures  are  miserable  because 
we  have  not  sufficient  means  of  communion  with 
each  other. 

We  suffer,  hate,  and  quarrel,  because  we  can 
neither  rightly  think,  nor  communicate  our  thoughts. 
For  in  order  to  think  and  speak  we  use  words  and 
language.  And  words  and  language  in  their  present 
state  are  absolutely  insufficient  means  for  what  we 
try  to  do  with  them.  They  are  corrupt,  petrified, 
stale,  full  of  snares  and  pitfalls,  full  of  antiquated 
images,  dead  and  stony,  instead  of  living  and  spirit- 
ual. 

This  is  indeed  the  clue  to  most  of  the  present 
human  miseries.  It  explains  all  the  religious  quar- 
rels which  led  to  so  much  cruelty  and  bloodshed,  it 
explains  the  political  struggles,  the  wars  of  nations, 
the  social  and  economical  troubles.  For  at  the  bot- 
tom of  all  is  the  want  of  communion  between  man 
and  man,  not  only  between  strangers,  but  even 
between  brothers  of  the  same  house.  They  all 
fight  because  they  think  differently.  And  yet  these 
differences  of  thought  and  feeling,  of  volition  and 
intention,  can  all  be  traced  back  to  the  inadequacy 
of  language. 

To  prove  this  has  been  the  life-work  of  Lady 
Welby.  The  amount  of  evidence  she  has  collected 
for  that  purpose  is  gigantic.  Men  who  have  known 
Darwin  and  his  methods  say  that  his  work  only 
can  be  compared  to  the  labour  done  by  this  extra- 


86  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

ordinary  woman.  She  has  published  a  few  books,  and 
her  branch  of  science,  which  she  calls  "Signifies,"* 
begins  now  to  gain  official  recognition.  But  the 
fruits  of  her  tremendous  labour  are  as  yet  stored  up 
in  her  library  at  Harrow.  Let  mankind  take  care 
lest  this  great  treasure  be  lost  or  scattered  unused. 
For  in  the  face  of  the  facts  contained  there  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  men  have  been  fools  indeed,  and 
that  they  are  now  only  slowly  growing  aware  of 
their  foolishness.  And  is  it  not  the  first  condition 
of  improvement  to  get  insight  into  one's  faults?  Is 
not  a  true  diagnosis  the  first  requisition  for  a  cure? 
To  me  the  friendship  of  Lady  Welby  and  the  acquain- 
tance with  her  work  have  been  of  immense  importance. 

As  a  poet  one  must  have  intuitive  knowledge  of 
the  fact  that  our  mind  is  outgrowing  our  language^ 
that  our  implements  for  thinking  and  communica- 
tion are  ridiculously  primitive  and  clumsy  in  com- 
parison with  the  subtle  realities  we  have  to  deal 
with.  Every  true  poet  feels  this  and  his  longing 
is,  more  or  less  vaguely,  for  some  better  means  of 
understanding,  for  a  transcendent  language,  meeting 
our  needs  of  transcendent  knowledge. 

Yet  it  is  a  different  thing  from  feeling  all  this 
vaguely  to  go  at  it  with  full  conviction  and  show  it 
with  forcible  arguments  to  poor,  struggling  mankind. 

A  universal  insight  of  this  truth,  with  all  the 
authority  of  an  acknowledged  science,  would  mean 

^Signifies  and  Language,  by  V.  Welby  [Macmillan,  1911). 


INFLUENCE  OF  SOME  FRIENDS          87 

more  than  a  thousand  peace  conferences,  it  would 
unite  the  now  contending  forces  of  religion  and 
natural  science,  it  would  do  more  to  establish  a 
higher  human  wisdom  than  all  psychical  research 
or  theosophical  teaching.  For  in  truth,  according 
to  my  experience,  we  can  divide  all  humanity  into 
two  classes:  Those  who  are  enlightened  enough  to 
recognize  the  inadequacy  of  language,  and  those 
who  are  not.  The  first  class  only  can  build  up  the 
future  of  the  human  race.  On  them  only,  and  their 
consequent  action,  depends  the  hope  of  our  salva- 
tion. For  is  it  not  true  that  the  teachers  of  religion 
and  the  teachers  of  science  are  both  working  for  the 
truth?  They  use  the  same  word.  And  yet  do  they 
know  with  perfect  clearness  what  they  both  mean 
by  that  recklessly  abused  word? 

All  political  leaders,  all  social  reformers  are 
struggling  for  the  sake  of  human  happiness.  But 
have  they  the  faintest  notion  what  the  word  "happi- 
ness" really  can  signify  for  all  who  use  it? 

How  far  Lady  Welby's  proposals  for  a  remedy 
will  be  successful,  I  consider  for  the  moment  an 
irrelevant  question.  What  I  hold  to  be  of  the  very 
highest  importance  is  the  insight  she  tries  to  bring 
into  the  intricate  mazes  of  our  endless  errors,  into 
the  deep  confusions  of  our  troubled  selves. 

Welby's  life-work  and  activity  is  the  highest 
example  of  what  the  world  may  expect  from  women. 
It  is  the  best  and  the  final  answer  to  the  woman 


88  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

question.  It  shows  how  a  woman,  after  fulfilling 
her  duties  as  wife  and  mother,  may  enter  a  new  and 
far  more  important  field  of  activity  at  a  time  when% 
according  to  the  old  opinion,  she  was  spent  and 
useless:  it  shows  how  she  may  add  to  the  store  of 
human  wisdom  her  own  special  treasure  of  intuitive 
knowledge.  And  this  without  losing  any  of  her 
essentially  feminine  qualities,  or  trespassing  unduly 
upon  what  belongs  to  the  male.  Was  this  fact  not 
anticipated  in  antiquity,  when  deeper  insight  into 
matters  human  and  divine  was  ascribed  to  saintly 
women,  who,  in  losing  their  physical  maternal 
powers,  became  like  holy  mothers  of  the  race? 

Without  doubt  the  Western  civilization  of  our 
days  is  too  rational  and  intellectual.  It  wants 
correction  by  intuitive  insight —  not  by  the  wisdom 
that  knows  but  by  the  wisdom  that  is.  We  are 
overconfident  in  our  learning  and  in  our  technical 
power;  yet  we  are  lacking  in  the  highest  human 
qualities,  in  the  poetry  of  life,  in  transcendental 
wisdom.  We  shall  have  to  correct  and  complete 
our  modern  acquirements  according  to  the  standard 
of  former  ages  and  of  other  nations  that  possessed 
the  advantages  which  we  have  lost.  The  human 
beings  of  antiquity  and  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  also 
the  Oriental  people  of  to-day,  are  our  superiors  in 
inner  accomplishments,  in  transcendental  perfec- 
tion, in  those  individual  qualities  that  we  are  re- 
placing now  by  a  materialistic  science  and  a  formal, 


INFLUENCE  OF  SOME  FRIENDS          89 

clerical  religion.  Yet  our  gain  is  a  better  outward 
union  of  the  nations,  brought  about  by  our  mastery 
over  the  forces  of  nature,  by  our  swifter  communion, 
our  stronger  physical  unity,  our  universal  scientific 
insight  of  nature. 

In  a  very  remarkable  speech  at  the  Psychological 
Congress  in  Paris  in  1900,  a  noble  representative 
of  Oriental  civilization  expressed  the  rightful  wish 
that  Occident  and  Orient  might  understand  each 
other  and  might  learn  from  each  other's  methods. 
Both  clauses  of  this  wish  are  incomplete,  the  Orient 
is  stagnant,  the  Occident  is  pushing  on  through 
blocked  road.  Only  by  combining  the  two  civil- 
izations can  mankind  reach  that  real  culture  which 
has  been  lacking  until  now.  The  man  who  said 
this  was  called  Yagadisha  Chattopadyaya,  and  he 
made  upon  me  the  impression  of  a  complete  and 
finished  man,  because  thus  far  I  had  seen  either  in- 
valids, unfinished  specimens,  or  caricatures  of  the 
human  race. 

This  Indian,  a  Bramin  of  Benares,  was  still  a 
young  man,  and  he  had  good  looks,  a  fine  build, 
and  perfect  grace  in  manners  and  movements.  In 
the  midst  of  the  horrid  black  coats,  unshapely 
trousers,  and  ridiculous  top  hats  of  the  learned  men 
at  the  congress,  his  exquisitely  beautiful  and  graceful 
dress  made  him  look  like  a  lily  among  cabbages.  I 
had  been  myself  a  vegetarian  for  some  years,  and 
had  found  it  difficult  to  remain  so.  This  Indian  had 


9o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

never  polluted  his  lips  with  flesh  nor  with  alcoholic 
drinks.  His  gentleness,  his  mild,  quiet  ways,  his 
distinction  and  the  depth  of  his  thoughts  made  me 
feel  ashamed  for  the  presumption  of  our  Occidental 
people  who  claim  the  highest  place  in  human  civil- 
ization. In  the  short  time  of  our  acquaintance 
we  were  daily  together  and  I  became  very  much 
attached  to  him.  Of  course,  as  I  do  always,  I  saw 
his  best  qualities  first.  I  have  no  doubt  he  has 
defects  to  counterbalance  them.  But  he  went  to 
his  fatherland  without  showing  his  weaknesses,  leav- 
ing me  only  the  remembrance  of  his  virtues. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    GREAT    STRIKE 

I  HAD  entered  now  into  the  labour  movement, 
into  what  may  be  called  militant  socialism.  I 
never  cared  for  labels,  nor  for  party  programmes, 
but  it  seemed  that  by  my  own  development  I  had 
landed  in  the  midst  of  tlie  class-war. 

For  the  first  three  or  four  decades  of  my  life  I  had, 
like  most  other  people  of  the  leisure  class,  been  only 
dimly  aware  of  the  way  in  which  our  comfortable 
life  was  made  possible.  We  live,  it  seems  more  or 
less,  in  a  state  of  somnambulism.  We  may  be  said 
to  know  but  not  yet  to  feel  or  to  realize  the  injustice 
of  our  position.  A  slight  shock  to  our  mind  is  some- 
times able  to  wake  us  up  and  open  our  eyes  to  the 
disagreement  between  our  confessed  morals  and  our 
actual  mode  of  living. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  to  me  that  this  shock  did  not 
come  in  my  case  through  so-called  "scientific" 
German  social-economical  theories,  nor  through  the 
writings  of  the  great  Russians,  Tolstoy  and  Kro- 
potkin,  but  from  the  American  side,  through  Bellamy's 
"Looking  Backward"  and  Thoreau's  "Walden."  I 

91 


92  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

sometimes  felt  a  little  humiliated  that  such  a  super- 
ficial and  unpoetical  book  as  "Looking  Backward" 
was  the  instrument  of  my  evolution.  Alfred  Rus- 
sell Wallace,  however,  the  famous  explorer  and 
biologist,  one  day  told  me  to  my  consolation  that 
he  also  was  made  a  socialist  by  that  same  simple, 
silly,  little  book.  It  was  the  clear  common  sense, 
the  cheerful  optimism  of  the  American  author,  that 
gave  the  slight  shock  wanted.  And  however  dif- 
ferent in  many  respects  my  views  were  from  those 
of  Thoreau,  it  was  by  the  touch  of  his  strong  char- 
acter, of  his  sincerity,  uprightness  and  determination, 
that  my  thoughts  became  deeds.  For  this  transi- 
tion is  not  at  all  a  scientific,  rational  process,  but  a 
moral  event.  Its  motives  are  not  knowledge  and 
learning,  but  freedom  of  mind  and  cheerful  hope. 
The  pushing  force  comes  from  the  men  of  faith  and 
of  force  of  character.  The  mind  may  be  prepared 
intellectually,  but  it  wants  ethical  incitement  to 
change  its  potential  energy  into  active  movement. 

I  delivered  at  that  time  two  addresses  which 
were  my  declarations  of  War  and  Independence. 
The  first  was  spoken  before  a  public  of  fashionable, 
peaceful  citizens  of  Rotterdam,  in  an  old-fashioned, 
respectable  lecturing  society  bearing  the  proud  name 
of  the  "Company  for  the  Promotion  of  Common 
Welfare." 

I  had  given  as  a  title  of  my  lecture  "On  What  Do 
We  Live?"  And  a  large  audience  crowded  the  room 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  93 

expecting  to  hear  from  me,  the  well-known  doctor 
and  specialist,  a  useful  and  instructive  speech  on  the 
mysteries  of  nutrition,  on  what  a  man  ought  to  eat 
and  not  to  eat,  on  protein  and  nuclein,  on  fat  and 
starch.  Great  was  their  surprise  when  I  told  them 
frankly  and  forcibly  that  all  men,  the  lecturer  in- 
cluded, lived  on  theft  and  deceit,  on  piracy  and 
robbery,  on  usury  and  monopoly.  For  the  moment 
they  were  impressed,  even  to  the  point  of  applaud- 
ing, and  the  chairman  told  me  they  hoped  to  see  me 
again.  He  was  much  blamed  for  that  saying  after- 
ward. The  papers  next-morning  flamed  with  indig- 
nation, and  the  "Company  for  the  Promotion  of 
Common  Welfare"  had  no  use  for  me  after  that 
day. 

Later  on,  in  the  country  of  Bellamy  and  Thoreau, 
I  had  many  experiences  of  the  same  kind.  My 
ability  to  promote  physical  health  met  with  more 
approval  than  my  power  of  promoting  spiritual 
welfare,  and  audiences  stood  with  much  more  ease 
and  patience  any  remarks  about  hygienic  trespasses 
than  about  social  inequity. 

The  second  lecture  was  intended  for  the  labourer 
and  was  named  "For  Whom  Do  You  Work?"  In 
that  one  I  pointed  out  that  it  was  very  unreasonable 
and  foolish  for  the  workingmen  to  blame  and  abuse 
the  idle  usurer,  and  yet  continue  to  work  for  him. 
If  their  contention  was  true  that  the  members  of 
the  leisure  class  did  live  like  useless  parasites  on 


94  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

the  work  of  the  labourer,  then  it  was  a  shame  and  a 
sin  to  build  houses,  make  clothes,  raise  food  for  them. 
There  was  no  use  in  calling  them  names,  I  said;  the 
only  right  way  was  to  leave  them  alone  to  work  for 
themselves.  Is  it  true  that  the  labourers  are  the 
only  useful  members  of  society?  Well,  then,  their 
device  ought  to  be  to  work  only  for  those  who  work 
for  them  —  workers  for  workers  —  and  let  the  idler 
starve. 

The  labourers  listened  and  cried  "Hear!  hear!" 
The  social-democrats  called  me  a  bourgeois-utopist, 
and  other  murderous  names,  but  nobody  could  show 
me  in  what  I  was  mistaken,  nor  why  my  rational 
advice  could  not  be  followed.  I  had  to  find  that  out 
all  by  myself. 

Of  course  the  labourers  wanted  me  to  show  them 
how  they  could  manage  to  work  only  for  workers. 
My  answer  was  simple  enough:  "Produce  yourself 
what  you  want,  and  live  on  what  is  produced  by 
you  and  your  fellow-workers."  The  same  method 
I  had  recommended  to  our  Government  when  it 
was  embarrassed  by  the  unemployed:  "Give  them 
the  opportunity  to  produce  what  they  want."  This 
advice  was  also  utterly  disdained  and  ridiculed, 
though  nobody  could  tell  me  why  it  was  so  absurd 
or  impossible. 

I  knew  quite  well  that  there  would  be  many  diffi- 
culties in  the  execution  of  my  plan,  yet  the  idea  I 
knew  also  to  be  quite  sound.  If  the  practice  was 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  95 

difficult,  all  the  more  reason  why  we  should  go  to 
work  and  try  to  face  the  difficulties. 

This  was  the  theoretical  basis  of  my  social  ex- 
periment. And  I  can  honestly  declare  now  that  it 
brought  me  all  the  knowledge  I  wanted,  however 
much  of  a  failure  it  seemed  to  the  outsider.  I 
wanted  to  know  why  my  simple  maxim  had  not  yet 
been  put  into  practice,  what  was  in  the  way,  and  how 
it  could  be  realized.  I  daresay  that  I  do  know  at  this 
time. 

The  trouble  was  with  most  people  who  agreed 
with  the  truth  of  my  proposal,  that  they  had  no  idea 
of  a  gradual  transition.  They  supposed  that  a  few 
men  could  at  once  live  up  to  the  theory  entirely. 
This  could  be  done  only  if  the  men  were  heroes  and 
strong  characters  like  Thoreau.  If  a  few  men  could 
either  reduce  their  wants  or  extend  their  productive 
power  sufficiently  they  would  make  both  ends  meet. 
To  them  even  the  difficulty  of  acquiring  sufficient 
means  for  producing  would  not  be  insurmountable. 
They  would  have  to  reduce  their  wants  a  little  to 
bring  them  within  the  scope  of  their  productive  power 
and  in  that  way  create  a  surplus,  a  margin  of  what 
might  be  called  "profit"  or  "extension-capital." 
This  surplus  would  increase  at  a  growing  rate,  as 
they  drew  more  fellow-workers  into  their  circle,  and 
in  the  end  it  would  enable  them  to  buy  as  much 
land  and  as  many  implements  as  they  needed  to 
produce  all  the  necessities  of  modern  life. 


96  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

What  I  had  yet  to  learn  was  that  the  power  of 
mankind,  either  to  reduce  their  wants  or  to  extend 
their  productivity  is  extremely  limited.  I  did  not 
realize  then  that  men  are,  for  the  most  part,  gre- 
garious animals,  who  cannot  reduce  their  wants 
unless  it  is  done  collectively,  and  who  cannot  extend 
their  production,  unless  their  activity  is  cleverly 
directed  by  superior  minds. 

The  labourers  had  no  idea  of  this  either.  Most 
of  them  who  listened  to  my  advice  and  agreed  with 
my  idea  did  not  believe  at  all  in  the  necessity  of 
authority  and  discipline.  They  were  fed  on  the 
idealistic  wisdom  of  Tolstoy  and  Kropotkin,  who  be- 
lieved in  the  superfluity  of  all  authority  and  in  the 
beauty  and  blessing  of  full  anarchism;  or  else  they 
were  flattered  and  spoiled  by  the  speeches  and 
pamphlets  of  social-democratic  and  anarchistic 
demagogues  who  had  told  them  that  they  needed 
no  practice  and  no  help  from  superior  minds.  The 
only  thing  for  them  was  to  have  political  power, 
the  power  to  rule  by  law  or  to  do  away  with  all  laws; 
then  everything  would  come  right  by  itself. 

From  such  glaring  absurdities  I  tried  to  lead  them 
to  practical  experiments.  This  was  why  the  social- 
democrats  called  me  a  misleader,  an  "enemy  of  the 
people."  It  was  natural  that  they  should  distrust 
me  because,  when  the  people  followed  my  way,  the 
absurdity  of  the  plan  of  the  demagogues  would  be- 
come rather  too  obvious.  If  the  labourers  could 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  97 

not,  by  their  own  effort,  organize  effectively  so  as 
to  extend  their  productive  power  and  to  meet  their 
wants,  even  on  a  small  scale,  there  was  little  hope 
that  they  would  be  able  to  do  so  as  a  whole,  at  once, 
after  having  acquired  political  powers.  It  would 
be  clear  then  that  they  need  the  help  of  superior 
individuals  of  the  ruling  class,  of  organizing  minds 
that  could  direct  their  activity  and  maintain  author- 
ity and  discipline. 

I  succeeded  in  starting  a  company  called  the 
"Company  for  the  Common  Possession  of  the  Soil." 
Its  aim  was  to  acquire,  in  the  first  place,  the  means 
of  production  —  the  soil,  source  of  all  wealth  —  by 
the  efforts  of  well-organized  productive  labour. 
My  plan  was  to  start  small  groups  of  workers,  who 
should  produce  those  necessities  of  life  that  all  the 
others  wanted,  and  who  should  reserve  the  profits 
of  their  business,  or  at  least  a  part  of  them,  for  the 
acquisition  of  land  and  implements,  and  for  the 
starting  of  new  groups.  The  end  would  be  a  large 
cooperation,  productive  and  distributive,  consisting 
of  workers  who  lived  on  their  own  soil  and  who 
themselves  supplied  all  they  wanted. 

To  me  it  was  clear  —  and  is  so  still  —  that  such  a 
body  would  be  economically  the  most  powerful  on 
earth,  able  to  cope  with  every  trust  and  even  with 
every  political  power,  a  constant  source  of  unlimited 
wealth,  having  in  its  midst  none  of  the  worst  evils 
of  our  present  society,  no  pauperism,  no  unemploy- 


98  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

ment,  no  theft,  and  a  good  deal  less  crime,  disease, 
insanity,  and  despair. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  this  company,  which 
was  started  in  1901,  still  exists.  Hollanders  are  a 
curious  people.  They  are  very  slow  and  suspicious. 
You  may  offer  them  a  bone  of  truth  a  long  time  before 
they  will  take  it,  but  when  they  do  seize  it,  they 
cling  like  a  bulldog,  however  bare  it  may  prove  to  be. 
The  "Company  for  the  Common  Possession  of  the 
Soil"  has  not  yet  any  possessions  at  all;  it  even  lost 
the  soil  which  was  given  to  it.  It  consists  of  a  few 
producing  groups,  who  are  struggling  hard  for  ex- 
istence, but  who  nevertheless  have  faith  and  hope, 
as  may  be  seen  in  the  monthly  paper  that  they 
publish,  The  Pioneer. 

Of  course  their  trouble  is  the  lack  of  able  leaders, 
of  clever,  experienced  business  men,  as  every  Ameri- 
can understands.  I  have  told  them  so  over  and  over 
again  since  I  came  to  see  it  myself.  They  do  not, 
however,  seize  upon  the  new  bone  I  offer  them; 
they  are  unwilling  to  give  up  their  old,  bare  dogmas 
of  socialism;  they  still  believe  that  the  labourer  has 
to  liberate  himself  without  help  from  the  intellect- 
uals who  belong  to  another  class,  and  that  authority 
and  discipline  in  business  matters  always  lead  to 
abuse  and  extortion. 

Nobody  who  joined  me  in  1901,  not  even  the 
intellectuals,  understood  the  experimental  char-, 
acter  of  my  work.  Nobody  had  that  spirit  of  scien- 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  99 

tific  exploration  that  is  always  ready  to  give  up  old 
tactics,  to  make  a  new  move,  to  leave  a  hypothesis 
that  proves  useless  for  a  better  one,  to  seek  inces- 
santly new  methods,  new  ways  along  the  line  of 
least  resistance,  and  that  finds  in  negative  results 
no  reason  for  discouragement,  but  useful  instruction 
and  suggestions  for  new  and  better  plans. 

In  January,  1903,  when  my  experiment  at  Walden 
was  going  on  fairly  well,  when  we  had  just  begun  to 
find  a  source  of  increasing  revenue  in  the  baking 
and  selling  of  an  excellent  sort  of  whole-meal  bread, 
a  railway  strike  took  place,  which  almost  entirely 
isolated  the  capital  of  the  Netherlands  for  two  days 
from  the  rest  of  the  country.  A  most  curious  sight 
it  was  to  see  the  business  men  of  Amsterdam  who 
had  their  homes  in  suburbs  or  villages  some  ten  or 
twenty  miles  from  town  crowding  the  country  roads 
—  on  foot,  on  bicycles,  or  in  hired  vehicles  of  various 
descriptions  —  all  looking  very  cross  and  out  of 
temper  because  they  could  not  reach  their  offices 
in  time.  To  most  of  them  it  was  an  astonishing 
revelation  of  the  importance  of  railway  workers. 
The  leaders  of  the  strike,  who  had  been  able  in 
this  way  to  stop  business  at  the  capital,  became 
at  once  men  of  note,  though  of  a  most  unpopular 
sort. 

As  the  blow  came  unforeseen,  and  found  the 
Government  unprepared,  the  strike  was  eminently 
successful.  The  railway  company  and  the  Govern- 


ico  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

ment  gave  in  and  agreed  to  the  rather  moderate 
wishes  of  the  strikers.  Engine-drivers  decorated 
their  locomotives  with  roses  after  the  victory. 

As  soon  as  peace  was  settled,  the  prime  minister 
proceeded  to  establish  a  law  that  would  in  the  future 
prevent  such  humiliation  of  the  highest  authority. 
When  this  law  was  discussed  in  Parliament,  another 
strike  broke  out,  this  time  meant  to  be  general,  in 
order  to  oppose  the  passing  of  the  bill. 

As  chairman  of  the  "Company  for  the  Common 
Possession  of  the  Soil"  I  was  supposed  to  be  on  the 
side  of  the  striking  labourers  and  I  was  invited  to 
take  part  in  the  organizing  of  the  great  strike.  And 
I  agreed  to  do  what  I  could  —  not  because  I  had  any 
great  expectations  concerning  the  practical  results 
of  the  strike,  as  I  knew  that  many  of  the  socialists 
had,  who  hoped  for  a  total  overturn  of  the  social 
system  —  but  because  I  expected  that  many  of  the 
best  strikers  would  come  to  my  conclusions — namely, 
that  it  was  necessary  for  the  labourer  to  tackle  the 
great  problem  of  the  organization  of  production 
before  he  looked  for  the  possession  of  political  power. 
In  this  expectation  I  was  not  disappointed. 

At  the  preliminary  meetings  all  the  socialistic 
groups  forgot  their  differences  and  met  like  brothers 
on  the  field  of  battle.  Anarchists,  social-democrats, 
and  free-socialists  all  promised  to  stand  together. 
It  was  a  complete  rally.  My  most  violent  op- 
ponents, the  Marxists,  shook  hands  with  me,  and  a 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  101 

fine  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  hopeful  enthusiasm 
prevailed. 

About  forty  of  us  were  sent  as  delegates  to  different 
towns  to  lead  and  encourage  the  strikers  there. 
The  password  was  given  and  a  date  and  hour  secretly 
appointed.  On  Monday  morning,  the  sixth  of  April, 
1903,  no  train  was  to  run  on  any  railway  in  the 
Netherlands. 

Sunday  evening  I  set  out,  as  one  of  the  forty 
delegates,  on  the  warpath.  I  took  leave  of  my 
family,  filled  a  suit  case  with  pamphlets  and  fly- 
leaves, and  arrived  in  the  middle  of  the  night  at 
the  little  town  of  Amersfoort,  an  important  railway 
junction,  to  bring  my  message  from  headquarters 
that  a  strike  would  be  declared  that  night  in  the 
whole  country.  Expecting  the  Government  to  be 
very  active  and  energetic  and  not  unlikely  to  arrest 
me,  I  took  an  assumed  name,  and  was  dressed  like  a 
labourer. 

The  attitude  of  the  railway-men  at  the  night- 
meeting  where  I  presided  was  very  fine.  I  was  much 
struck  by  the  unwavering  courage,  the  generous 
sentiments,  the  cheerful  energy  of  these  people,  who 
all  knew  that  the  existence  of  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren was  at  stake,  and  who,  having  just  come  from 
a  strenuous  and  long  day's  labour,  went  to  work  the 
whole  night  to  prepare  the  great  blow.  I  saw  what 
excellent  material  these  men  would  make  under  a 
strong  and  clever  leadership. 


102  'HAPPY  HUMANITY 

But  alas!  no  such  leadership  directed  that  great 
strike  in  Holland  in  1903.  The  organization  of  the 
movement  was  poor,  there  were  no  funds,  Govern- 
ment and  railway  company  had  made  their  prepa- 
rations, there  was  a  great  display  of  military  forces, 
though  only  one  shot  was  fired,  and  that  by  acci- 
dent, and  there  was  a  sufficient  reserve  of  blacklegs. 
The  strength  of  the  labour  union  of  railway  workers 
was  thoroughly  undermined  by  methods  of  intimi- 
dation and  bribery. 

I  stayed  a  week  in  that  little  town,  living  in  the 
houses  of  the  strikers,  sharing  their  meals  and  their 
hours  of  suspense  and  anxiety.  There  was  a  dark, 
dingy  meeting  room  where  they  all  preferred  to 
gather,  rather  than  to  stay  at  home.  The  women 
also  regularly  attended  these  meetings,  sometimes 
bringing  their  children,  and  they  all  sought  the 
comfort  of  being  in  company,  talking  of  hopes  and 
fears,  cheering  each  other  up  by  songs,  and  trying 
to  raise  each  other's  spirits  during  the  long  days  of 
inaction.  I  addressed  them,  three  or  four  times  a 
day,  trying  to  give  them  sound  notions  on  social 
conditions  and  preparing  them  for  the  defeat  which 
I  soon  knew  to  be  inevitable.  I  may  say,  however, 
that,  though  I  was  of  all  the  forty  delegates  the 
least  hopeful  of  ultimate  success,  my  little  party 
was  the  last  to  surrender  and  showed  the  smallest 
percentage  of  fugitives. 

I  saw  in  those  days  of  strife  that  of  the  two  con- 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  103 

tending  parties,  the  stronger,  the  victorious  one,  was 
by  far  the  least  sympathetic  in  its  moral  attitude  and 
methods.  The  strikers  were  pathetically  stupid 
and  ignorant  about  the  strength  of  their  opponents 
and  their  own  weakness.  If  they  had  unexpectedly 
gained  a  complete  victory  they  would  have  been 
utterly  unable  to  use  it.  If  the  political  power  had 
shifted  from  the  hands  of  the  Government  to  those 
of  the  leading  staff  of  that  general  strike,  the  result 
would  have  been  a  terrible  confusion.  There  was 
no  mind  strong  enough,  no  hand  firm  enough  among 
them  to  rule  and  reorganize  that  mass  of  workers, 
unaccustomed  to  freedom,  untrained  to  self-control, 
unable  to  work  without  severe  authority  and  dis- 
cipline. Yet  the  feelings  and  motives  of  that  mul- 
titude were  fair  and  just  —  they  showed  a  chivalry, 
a  generosity,  an  idealism  and  an  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  low  methods  of  their  powerful  opponents 
contrasted  painfully. 

Every  striker  had  to  fight  his  own  fight  at  home. 
Every  evening  he  had  to  face  the  worn  and  anxious 
face  of  his  wife,  the  sight  of  his  children  in  danger  of 
starvation  and  misery.  He  had  to  notice  the  hidden 
tears  of  the  woman,  or  to  answer  her  doubts  and 
reproaches,  with  a  mind  itself  far  from  confident. 
He  had  to  fight  in  his  own  heart  the  egotistical 
inclination  to  save  himself  and  give  up  what  he  felt 
to  be  his  best  sentiment,  solidarity,  the  faith  toward 
his  comrades. 


io4  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

I  believe  no  feeling  man  of  the  leisure  class  could 
have  gone  through  a  week  in  those  surroundings 
and  taken  part  in  a  struggle  like  this  without  ac- 
quiring a  different  conception  of  the  ethics  of  social- 
ism and  class  war. 

For  on  the  other  side  there  were  the  Government, 
the  companies,  the  defendants  of  existing  order, 
powerful  by  their  wealth,  by  their  routine,  by  their 
experience,  and  supported  by  the  servility  of  the 
great  public  and  the  army.  They  had  not  to  face 
any  real  danger  (the  strikers  showed  no  inclination 
to  deeds  of  violence),  and  the  arms  they  used  were 
intimidation  and  bribery.  The  only  thing  for  them 
to  do  was  to  demoralize  the  striker,  to  make  him  an 
egoist,  a  coward,  a  traitor  to  his  comrades.  And 
this  was  done  quietly  and  successfully. 

Demoralizing  the  enemy  may  be  the  lawful  object 
of  every  war  —  the  unavoidable  evil  to  prevent  a 
greater  wrong;  yet  in  this  case,  where  the  method  of 
corruption  could  be  used  only  on  one  side,  it  showed 
the  ugly  character  of  the  conflict.  This  was  no  fair 
battle,  with  common  moral  rules  of  chivalry  and 
generosity;  it  was  a  pitiful  and  hopeless  struggle 
between  a  weak  slave  and  a  strong  usurper,  between 
an  ill-treated,  revolting  child  and  a  brutal  op- 
pressor, who  cared  only  for  the  restoration  of  his 
authority,  not  for  the  morals  of  the  child. 

Every  day  when  I  walked  through  the  streets  of 
the  little  town,  at  the  head  of  my  strikers,  we  saw 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  105 

the  inhabitants  look  at  us  with  derision  and  pity. 
They  called  us  stakkers  (poor  fellows)  instead  of 
stakers  (strikers).  We  were  in  connection  with  head- 
quarters by  messengers  on  bicycles.  We  had  also 
post-carrying  pigeons,  but  they  were  of  little  use, 
and  once  an  automobile  brought  news  from  head- 
quarters—  all  sorts  of  doubtful  information:  for 
instance,  that  the  Government  was  going  to  sur- 
render, that  a  large  gift  was  expected  from  a 
wealthy  man,  and  so  on. 

In  the  meanwhile  trains  were  running  on  the  track 
busily  every  day.  We  heard  the  rumble  and  the 
whistles  day  and  night,  and  I  remember  how  every 
whistle  in  the  night  used  to  wake  me  up,  as  it  meant 
another  blackleg  or  fugitive  returned  to  his  post. 
The  strikers,  however,  told  each  other  that  this 
whistling  was  only  a  trick  of  the  company  —  making 
empty  locomotives  run  up  and  down  the  track  with 
as  much  noise  as  possible,  in  order  to  impress  the 
strikers  with  the  notion  that  regular  service  was 
restored. 

On  Tuesday  every  striker  got  a  note  from  the 
company  saying  that,  unless  he  called  at  his  post 
within  twelve  hours,  he  would  be  irrevocably  locked 
out.  At  the  next  meeting  all  my  men  came,  not 
one  missing,  and  the  notes  were  solemnly  burned. 
This  was  like  the  burning  of  their  ships  by  the 
Greeks.  It  was  now  victory  or  starvation- 

On  Friday  I  felt  that  all  was  lost.     No  tidings 


106  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

from  headquarters,  no  money-supply,  the  service  — 
notwithstanding  the  rumour  of  several  wrecks  by  un- 
trained officials  —  apparently  running  as  regularly 
as  usual.  At  noon  a  man  came,  by  train,  with  a 
message  from  headquarters,  bearing  the  word  that 
all  was  lost  and  that  we  must  give  up  the  strike.  A 
foreman  of  the  strikers  who  had  stood  by  me  all 
the  time  with  the  utmost  energy,  cheerfulness,  and 
enthusiasm,  broke  down  at  the  news  and  sobbed 
with  his  head  on  his  arms.  The  others  were  quiet 
and  resigned.  No  word  of  bitterness  or  despair 
was  heard,  no  blame  to  me  or  to  the  leaders.  On  the 
contrary,  at  my  request  they  all  stood  up  and  sang 
the  socialist  march. 

I  went  at  once  to  the  station-master  to  try  what 
I  could  do  for  the  locked-out  victims.  The  man 
played  his  little  comedy.  When  I  spoke  of  the  lost 
strike,  he  said: 

"  Strike?  What  are  you  talking  about,  sir?  I  do 
not  know  of  any  strike.  The  service  is  going  as  well 
as  ever.  There  have  been  a  few  fools  who  left  their 
posts,  but  they  have  been  warned,  and  are  now 
replaced  by  others." 

The  man  was  not  so  bad  as  he  looked,  however; 
he  felt  more  in  sympathy  than  he  was  allowed  to 
show.  Yet  he  could  do  nothing.  He  wired  to  the 
board  of  the  railway  company,  and  got  an  audience 
for  me  the  next  day.  There  I  went,  with  an  address 
in  my  pocket,  signed  by  all  my  strikers,  and  worded 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  107 

as  submissively  as  the  circumstances  made  necessary 
and  as  their  pride  would  allow.  I  pleaded  with  all 
my  eloquence  for  the  forty  families  who  were  led 
by  me  into  starvation.  In  the  whole  country  the 
number  was  over  two  thousand.  I  spoke  about  the 
noble  sentiments  and  the  good  cause  of  these  strikers, 
about  their  attachment  to  the  company  and  the  rail- 
way, about  the  danger  to  the  service  in  taking  un- 
trained novices,  about  generosity  and  pity. 

But  the  gentlemen  of  the  board  had  their  hour 
of  revenge.  They  had  not  forgotten  the  humiliation 
of  January.  They  wanted  to  rub  it  in  thoroughly 
this  time.  To  have  me,  one  of  the  socialist  leaders, 
in  their  midst  seemed  to  give  them  great  satisfaction. 
It  was  something  of  a  treat  to  them  to  see  how  heavily 
I  felt  the  burden  of  responsibility,  full  as  I  was  of 
the  impressions  of  those  days  spent  among  the  vic- 
tims of  the  unequal  struggle. 

Yet  they  were  not  the  stone-hard,  brutal  sort  of 
business  men  that  I  have  met  in  other  countries. 
They  spoke  of  humanity,  of  order  and  duty,  of 
patriarchal  relations  between  employers  and  work- 
men —  they  were  more  narrow  and  hypocritical 
than  coarse  and  cruel.  The  result,  however,  was 
thoroughly  negative,  and  when  I  felt  that  any  appeal 
to  generosity  was  as  useless  as  if  I  were  speaking  to 
some  feline  animal,  I  told  them  a  bit  of  my  mind 
and  the  scene  ended  rather  dramatically. 

After  that  I  had  an  audience  with  a  minister  of 


loS  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

the  Government,  who  was  exceedingly  urbane  and 
polite,  and  whose  talk  drifted  into  sociological  and 
philosophical  currents,  without  bringing  any  more 
hope. 

And  I  had  to  return  again  to  my  forty  families, 
who  had  placed  their  confidence  in  me,  and  who  were 
looking  anxiously  for  my  return,  gathered  in  the 
dark  dingy  meeting-room,  each  time  that  I  had  set 
forth  on  another  fool's  errand. 

From  a  practical  point  of  view  the  company 
received  advantages  from  the  strike.  They 
ran  some  danger,  and  had  indeed  a  few  wrecks, 
because  of  their  untrained  workers,  but  on  the 
other  hand  they  had  the  opportunity  to  get 
rid  of  a  number  of  aged  and  half-efficient  per- 
sons, without  obligation  to  give  them  the  pension 
for  which  they  had  contributed  all  their  years  of 
service. 

The  leaders  of  the  defeated  army  and  the  forty 
delegates  then  got  together  in  another  meeting  which 
became  notorious  in  Holland  as  the  "night-meeting" 
after  the  strike.  It  lasted  from  twilight  till  day- 
break, and  came  nearer  to  my  conception  of  a 
" pandemonium"  than  anything  I  have  seen  in  my 
life.  As  an  experience  of  crowd-psychology  it  was 
unrivalled.  During  the  first  three  or  four  hours 
there  were  regular  speeches,  wherein  of  course  each 
leader  of  his  party  threw  the  blame  of  the  defeat  on 
the  other  party,  the  anarchists  and  free-socialists 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  109 

being  particularly  violent  in  ascribing  the  whole 
debacle  to  treason  of  the  social-democrats.  The 
fact  was  that  the  social-democrats,  being  more 
practical  and  clear-sighted,  had  sooner  realized  the 
hopelessness  of  the  struggle  and  covered  their  re- 
treat. The  anarchists,  however,  who  had  fought  to 
the  end,  found  it  bitter  to  state  the  pitiful  result  of 
the  best  chance  they  ever  had. 

And  then,  after  these  speeches,  the  rest  of  the 
meeting  was  one  continuous  uproar  for  hours  at  a 
stretch.  I  saw  men  grow  so  excited  that  they  did 
nothing  but  howl  invectives  with  the  regular  rep- 
etition of  a  machine,  tears  streaming  down  their 
drawn,  pale  faces.  I  suppose  in  America  the  end 
would  have  been  shooting  and  killing.  In  Holland 
it  was  only  howling,  threatening,  and  breaking  of 
chairs. 

In  thinking  it  over  now,  the  most  wonderful  thing 
to  me  is  that,  although  I  was  present  at  that  meeting 
all  the  while  it  lasted,  it  did  not  seem  particularly 
long.  It  continued  full  ten  hours,  and  most  of  the 
time  nothing  happened  but  howling  and  shouting. 
One  would  think  this  beyond  the  power  of  endurance 
of  a  normal  nervous  system,  at  any  rate  too  much 
for  human  patience.  Yet  in  the  first  light  of  morn- 
ing I  rode  on  my  bicycle  to  my  home  fifteen  miles 
away  and  did  not  feel  especially  tired;  I  was  able 
to  go  to  my  daily  work  as  if  I  had  had  a  good  night's 
sleep.  There  seems  to  be  something  bracing  in  an 


no  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

atmosphere  of  extraordinary  excitement,  however 
useless  and  confused  it  may  be. 

I  had  succeeded,  however,  in  the  very  last  hour  of 
the  meeting  in  mastering  the  clamour  for  a  while 
and  in  making  myself  heard.  I  pointed  out  what 
had  to  be  done  next,  as  the  most  urgent  duty  - 
namely,  to  seek  help  for  the  two  thousand  starving 
families. 

This  was  agreed  to,  and  I  was  appointed,  with 
two  others,  to  form  a  committee  of  support. 

His  feliciter  peractis,  as  Caesar  would  say,  the 
shouting  done,  and  the  committee  nominated,  the 
generals  and  captains  of  the  lost  battle  felt  their 
minds  relieved  and  went  back  to  their  wonted  busi- 
ness, each  according  to  his  party  programme,  the 
social-democrats  preaching  politics,  the  anarchists 
preaching  anarchism  and  general  strikes,  while  the 
care  of  the  victims  was  left  to  me  and  my  two  fellow- 
members. 

One  of  these  fellow  members  was  the  keeper  of  a 
small  restaurant  in  Amsterdam,  a  shrewd,  funny 
Jew,  rather  popular  among  the  labouring  class  be- 
cause of  his  good  humour,  his  jokes  and  cunning 
stratagems.  He  had  made  a  reputation  by  out- 
witting the  fiscal  officials  to  the  advantage  of 
poor  taxpayers,  and  he  had  all  the  lively  eloquence, 
the  tender-heartedness,  the  vanity,  and  the  swagger- 
ing propensities  of  his  race.  Apparently  much 
flattered  at  having  been  given,  in  companionship 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  in 

with  me,  the  enormous  task  of  providing  two  thou- 
sand families  with  means  of  subsistence,  he  went  to 
work  with  a  really  astonishing  energy  and  inventive- 
ness. 

We  began  with  Amsterdam,  and  divided  the  town 
into  five  districts,  in  each  of  which  we  organized 
a  meeting,  addressed  the  people  in  order  to  explain 
our  plan,  and  appointed  a  sub-committee.  Then 
in  each  district  we  selected  some  of  the  locked-out 
strikers  and  made  them  call  at  every  workman's 
house,  and  also  at  the  houses  of  the  wealthier  people, 
and  ask  them  to  give  a*  regular  contribution  every 
week,  with  a  minimum  of  five  cents,  for  the  relief 
of  their  locked-out  comrades.  In  this  way  we  got 
a  list  of  contributors  varying  in  number  between 
two  and  three  thousand,  who  provided  us  every 
week  with  a  total  contribution  of  about  a  hundred 
dollars.  This  was  not  much,  but  it  was  something. 
We  could  establish  a  head  office  and  use  several 
of  the  unemployed  as  agents,  collectors,  and  clerks. 

When  this  canvassing  had  gone  on  successfully 
for  some  time  we  felt  that  we  ought  to  do  something 
more.  The  number  of  contributors  had  reached  its 
maximum  and  would  surely  decrease  after  the  first 
impulse  of  generosity  had  relaxed.  We  wanted 
to  keep  our  subscribers,  and  I  saw  in  this  loose 
organization  the  possibility  of  establishing  a  market 
for  the  products  of  my  cooperative  and  productive 
groups. 


ii2  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

My  fellow  member,  the  inventive  restaurant 
keeper,  who,  as  he  said,  knew  Amsterdam  and  its 
population  as  he  knew  his  own  pocket,  recommended 
the  following  device:  Instead  of  simply  collecting 
the  weekly  money  and  distributing  it  to  the  poor 
families,  we  should  keep  it  and  do  business  with  it, 
after  the  manner  of  a  savings  bank.  Every  con- 
tributor was  to  receive  a  stamp  representing  the 
value  of  his  contribution;  he  was  to  stick  this 
stamp  in  a  small  booklet.  When  his  booklet  con- 
tained a  sum  of  at  least  two  dollars  he  would  be 
able  to  exchange  it  for  some  article  of  his  choice, 
some  piece  of  household  furniture,  which  we  could 
offer  him  in  the  showroom  of  a  store  established  by 
us. 

This  idea  worked  successfully  —  so  successfully 
that  it  would  seem  marvellous  to  some  one  not 
acquainted  with  the  habits,  the  way  of  living,  and 
the  psychology  of  an  Amsterdam  household.  The 
lower  classes  of  Amsterdam  —  that  is,  by  far  the 
majority  of  the  population  —  have  to  live  on  a 
weekly  salary  that  is  never  quite  sufficient  for  their 
wants.  With  the  strictest  economy  they  have  to 
spend  at  least  seven  dollars  a  week,  although  the 
average  wages  are  about  five.  How  they  manage 
to  live  is  in  most  cases  a  mystery,  but  it  is  quite 
clear  that  they  can  never  save  in  the  form  of  money. 
They  always  have  small  debts  to  landlord,  baker, 
and  so  on.  Yet  they  want  from  time  to  time  some 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  113 

household  goods,  a  new  carpet,  a  chair,  a  clock. 
They  buy  these  in  small  stores  on  credit,  having 
to  pay  them  off  in  small  payments  during  many 
months,  paying  of  course  exorbitant  prices  for  bad 
goods.  In  the  same  way  young  couples  who  estab- 
lish a  household  bring  themselves  into  debt  some- 
times for  years  to  come. 

Now  our  method  offered  them  the  occasion  to  get 
these  goods  by  small  payments  in  advance.  Sav- 
ing five  cents  a  week  at  home  is  an  impossibility, 
because  the  five  cents  is  always  wanted  ere  the  week 
is  at  an  end.  Bringing  five  cents  a  week  to  a  savings 
bank  is  not  worth  while,  the  housewife  has  no  time 
to  spare.  But  our  collectors  came  every  week  and 
took  the  five  cents  and  stuck  the  stamp  in  the  book- 
let, and  then  after  some  months,  without  feeling  the 
expense,  the  so  much  desired  chair  or  table  or 
carpet  could  be  chosen  in  our  store  at  a  reasonable 
price. 

The  readiness  with  which  the  people  gave  their 
money  implied  confidence  in  our  solidity  and  honesty, 
although,  as  the  appointed  committee  for  the  support 
of  the  locked-out,  we  got  this  confidence  in  full 
measure  anyway.  My  name  was  well  known,  and 
the  trust  in  me,  alas!  so  great  that  I  felt  it  heavy 
to  bear.  My  shrewd  fellow-member  realized  the 
value  of  my  name  better  than  I  did  myself.  During 
my  absence  abroad  for  a  few  weeks  he  used  that 
name  freely,  with  a  characteristic  lack  of  discretion, 


ii4  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

and  with  only  too  great  success.  In  the  space  of  a 
few  months  the  organization  grew  as  a  snowball 
grows  to  an  avalanche.  The  number  of  contributors 
rose  to  more  than  forty  thousand  —  nearly  8  per 
cent,  of  the  population  of  Amsterdam  —  and  soon  we 
had  to  establish  agencies  in  all  the  principal  towns 
of  the  Netherlands. 

Thus  far  I  had  not  felt  the  slightest  misgiving,  or 
seen  any  imminent  danger.  On  the  contrary,  I 
approved  entirely  of  all  that  was  done  and  saw  a 
chance  for  brilliant  success,  a  market  for  our  pro- 
duction, a  source  of  increasing  capital.  For  our 
calculation  showed  clearly  that  we  ought  to  make 
profits.  We  were  doing  business  with  advanced 
money,  having  to  pay  no  interest,  and  being  bur- 
dened with  no  expense  except  that  of  collecting. 

What  I  did  not  foresee  was  that  business  people 
would  not  be  interested  in  what  interested  me,  would 
not  share  my  faith,  and  would  absolutely  refuse  to 
help  in  any  way. 

What  I  wanted  now  was  the  assistance  of  a  firm, 
experienced  business  man.  We  had  to  buy  and  sell 
goods  of  all  descriptions,  furniture,  clothes,  boots 
and  shoes,  fuel,  and  so  on;  and  we  had  to  rule  a 
rather  unruly  and  untrained  band  of  employees, 
consisting  of  railway-guards,  engine-drivers  and 
men  of  all  trades  whom  we  had  turned  into  shop- 
keepers, clerks,  collectors,  and  the  like. 

My  acute  restaurant  keeper  began  to  grow  nervous. 


THE  GREAT  STRIKE  115 

His  favourite  expression  was  "gigantic,"  and  he  had 
always  been  talking  of  the  gigantic  things  we  were 
going  to  do.  But  when  the  proportions  of  our 
undertaking  began  to  grow  in  full  earnest  it  was 
rather  too  gigantic  for  him.  In  the  beginning,  so 
long  as  the  organization  had  a  more  familiar  char- 
acter, he  could  manage  to  keep  his  authority,  with 
his  jovial  ways  and  his  jokes.  But  now  he  felt  that 
he  lost  his  hold  on  the  men.  They  would  not  obey 
him  and  grew  impertinent.  Once  a  man  to  whom 
we  had  refused  a  coveted  appointment  began  to 
swear  and  shout  for  twenty  minutes  at  least,  threat- 
ening to  kill  my  poor  fellow-director  and  drink  his 
blood. 

After  this  scene  he  lost  his  nerve  altogether. 
With  a  pale  face  he  said  to  me:  "It  requires  a 
Napoleon  to  conduct  this  business.  I  think  we 
better  stop."  To  this  proposal  I  did  not  agree.  I 
preferred  to  go  on  and  look  out  for  a  Napoleon. 
Even  if  I  had  wished  to  show  my  heels  and  fly,  it 
would  have  been  very  difficult.  For  my  worthy 
fellow-member  had  taken  care  to  put  my  name  and 
person  forward  on  all  occasions  and  to  shift  all 
responsibility  on  me.  For  I  had  some  financial 
credit  and  he  had  none. 

So  one  day  my  companion  wrote  to  me  that  he 
resigned  his  post,  and  he  returned  to  his  restaurant, 
where  he  sat  all  day  and  brooded  and  talked  to  his 
customers,  foretelling  my  inevitable  ruin.  Half  a 


n6  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

year  later,  probably  recovered  from  the  shock,  he 
started  another  organization  of  the  same  sort,  enter- 
ing into  a  most  relentless  competition. 

The  care  of  the  original  organization  was  now 
resting  entirely  on  me,  and  I  went  in  search  of  the 
Napoleon.  This  was  no  easy  task,  for  reasons  which 
I  will  presently  explain.  And  when  I  got  him  at  last, 
he  skipped  Marengo,  and  Austerlitz,  and  began  with 
Waterloo. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    BREAKDOWN 

IN  1897,  when  there  was  in  Holland  a  general  cry 
for  help  to  the  unemployed,  the  number  of 
which  then  became  alarming,  as  it  has  done  and 
will  continue  to  do  in  every  crisis,  I  made  a  proposi- 
tion to  my  countrymen  that  they  should  establish 
farms,  owned  and  supported  by  the  state,  where 
every  man  out  of  work  should  be  able  to  find  useful 
employment,  under  good  supervision  and  manage- 
ment. 

They  should  produce  principally  those  goods  that 
they  could  use  themselves,  and  work  more  for  their 
own  consumption  than  for  the  market,  forming  in 
this  way  a  sort  of  productive  cooperation.  I  fore- 
saw of  course  that  this  would  imply  an  annual  de- 
ficit to  the  Government,  but  I  considered  this  well- 
spent  money. 

This  idea  of  productive  cooperation  as  the  only 
way  to  get  out  of  our  social  troubles  has  indeed 
arisen  in  numerous  minds  and  was  brought  forward 
several  times.  The  difficulty  does  not  lie  in  the 
way,  which  is  easy  to  find  and  not  so  hard  to  go,  but 

in  getting  people  to  try  it. 

117 


n8  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

State  farms  were  recommended  in  Blatchford's 
well-known  booklet  "Merry  England,"  but  no 
Government  ever  dared  to  try  the  experiment.  In 
Holland  my  proposal  was  haughtily  declared  ridic- 
ulous. 

In  1830  William  Thompson  wrote  a  book  called 
"Practical  directions  for  the  Needy  and  Economical 
establishment  of  communities  on  the  principle  of 
mutual  cooperation,  united  possessions  and  equality 
of  exertions  and  of  the  means  of  enjoyment." 

It  is  still  worth  reading,  as  a  sensible  and  natural 
answer  of  an  unsophisticated,  undogmatic  mind  to 
the  alarming  cry  of  the  social  miseries.  It  is  full 
of  good,  even  practical,  sense.  When  Thompson 
died  he  left  all  his  property  in  the  hands  of  a  board 
of  trustees  in  order  that  they  should  try  a  practical 
experiment  with  it,  according  to  his  views.  But 
Thompson's  relatives  interfered  and  started  a  law- 
suit before  the  ill-famed  "Chancery"  of  Ireland. 
The  lawsuit  lasted  for  seventeen  years  and  then  all 
the  money  was  gone.  The  moral  of  this  being  that 
we  should  not  try  experiments  after  our  death,  with 
relatives  and  lawyers  still  alive.  What  Thompson 
wanted  to  do  was  a  repetition  of  what  had  been  tried 
by  several  social  reformers,  my  countryman  Plock- 
hoy,  who  colonized  in  the  seventeenth  century  in 
America,  among  the  number.  That  so  many  ex- 
periments failed  was  no  reason  not  to  try  once  more. 
Yet  Thompson's  excellent  advices  were  entirely  for- 


THE  BREAKDOWN  119 

gotten  by  the  uproar  of  dogmatists;  by  the  Chartists 
movement  in  England,  by  the  fierce,  bigoted  disci- 
ples of  Marx  in  Germany. 

I  wanted  to  try  my  experiment  during  my  life- 
time, and  the  advantage  of  this  was  that  I  got  the 
benefit  of  the  instructive  experience. 

My  reasoning  went  like  this :  It  is  impossible  for 
any  man.  in  present  society  to  give  up  all  unfair 
means  of  getting  his  subsistence.  He  is  dependent, 
in  a  thousand  trifles,  on  the  work  of  others.  He  can- 
not free  himself  entirely  from  the  intricate  tissue  of 
social  institutions  and  activities.  He  has  to  partake, 
more  or  less,  and  more  or  less  directly,  in  all  sorts  of 
foul  and  mean  devices  used  by  merchants,  land- 
owners, industrial  leaders,  and  others.  The  only 
way  of  keeping  entirely  free  from  direct  or  indirect 
swindle  would  be  to  live,  like  Robinson  Crusoe,  on 
your  own  patch  of  land,  by  the  work  of  your  own 
hands. 

This  was  done,  so  far  as  I  knew,  by  only  one  man, 
as  the  logical  outcome  of  his  severely  just  character. 
That  man  was  David  Henry  Thoreau.  And  in 
honour  of  his  high-minded  example  I  called  my  place 
Walden. 

But  even  Thoreau  had  to  give  up  his  heroic  effort, 
and  I  did  not  at  all  agree  with  his  contempt  of 
machinery  and  modern  industry.  On  the  contrary, 
I  wished  to  try,  by  bringing  together  several  people 
with  the  same  desire  for  justice  as  Theorau  had,  to 


120  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

alleviate  the  hardships  of  a  sober  life  and  to  start, 
on  a  small  scale,  a  newer,  better  organization. 

It  would  be,  of  course,  no  complete  change,  but  a 
transitional  form,  going  as  far  as  our  personal  en- 
deavours would  enable  us.  We  would  lessen  the 
burden  of  social  guilt  weighing  on  our  shoulders,  by 
living  as  plainly  and  soberly  as  possible,  and  by  try- 
ing to  produce  as  much  as  we  could  of  the  necessities 
of  our  life. 

We  were  to  have  the  soil  in  common,  to  produce 
only  useful  goods  that  we  could  consume  ourselves, 
to  sell  in  the  market  what  we  could  not  use,  and  live 
as  plainly  as  we  could.  My  hope  was  that  others 
would  follow  our  example  and  by  mutual  coopera- 
tion would  enable  us  to  get  more  comfort,  better 
production,  and  a  larger  market,  among  our  fellow 
workers,  for  our  produce. 

There  was  a  big  house  on  the  Walden  estate, 
where  one  or  two  families  and  the  unmarried  people 
could  live.  Moreover,  we  built  some  six  or  seven 
smaller  and  larger  habitations  for  the  married  people. 
Our  principle  produce  was,  in  the  beginning,  vege- 
tables. We  also  baked,  in  a  very  primitive  oven,  a 
pure  kind  of  wheat  bread,  which  proved  to  be  excel- 
lent and  was  soon  in  demand  by  many  customers 
in  the  near  village  of  Bussum.  By  and  by  we  ex- 
tended the  bakery  and  it  grew  very  quickly  into  a 
fairly  prosperous  business  which  could  keep  the 
whole  colony  afloat.  We  began  by  giving  wages  on 


THE  BREAKDOWN  121 

a  communistic  basis,  not  according  to  the  work  given, 
but  according  to  the  wants  of  the  worker  and  his 
family.  This  was  kept  up  for  several  years,  but  it 
proved  to  be  unsatisfactory.  The  bakers  complained 
that  the  gardeners  reduced  their  income  by  their  in- 
efficiency. We  had  soon  to  separate  the  two  ac- 
counts and  pay  each  man  in  his  own  trade  what  the 
sale  of  the  goods  would  afford. 

It  lasted  several  years  before  the  colony  was  self- 
supporting.  And  we  had  endless  troubles  and  quar- 
rels, most  of  them  caused  by  the  doctrinaires, 
who  objected  to  all  business  methods  as  being 
"  capitalistic,"  and  who  used  all  the  power  of  in- 
sinuation and  slander,  when  I  had  to  compel  them 
to  leave. 

As  an  experiment  it  was  indeed  very  instructive, 
and  it  cured  many  a  hot-headed  idealist  from  his 
illusions  about  the  possibility  of  immediate  demo- 
cratic or  anarchistic  regime. 

In  fact  it  very  soon  became  clear  to  me  that  de- 
mocracy and  common  ownership  could  not  be  realized 
at  once,  but  had  to  be  learned  by  a  long,  severe,  and 
careful  education. 

The  whole  place,  being  considered  as  common 
property  —  though  still  practically  my  own  — was 
badly  neglected,  everybody  leaving  the  care  to 
somebody  else,  and  putting  the  blame  on  the  others. 
I  now  saw  and  could  demonstrate,  plainly,  how  good 
and  strict  management  is  wanted  even  among 


122  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

those  who  pretend  to  be  socialists  and  upholders 
of  liberty  and  democracy.  Their  idea  of  liberty 
amounted  very  often  to  doing  as  they  pleased,  which 
is  not  always  as  it  pleases  others. 

I  saw  that  they  needed  authority,  that  they  had 
not  yet  become  of  age  in  the  full  human  sense.  They 
lacked  the  feeling  of  responsibility,  the  true  knowl- 
edge of  their  own  capacities,  and  the  full  self-pos- 
session that  entitles  to  claim  the  rights  of  true 
liberty. 

So,  in  order  to  keep  the  experiment  going,  I  had  to 
use  my  own  authority,  with  the  natural  result  that 
I  was  called  a  tyrant  and  a  despot. 

In  all  this,  however,  there  was  no  real  danger. 
Our  deficit  did  not  amount  to  more  than  what  I 
could  supply  by  my  literary  work.  As  I  had  kept 
the  title  in  my  own  hands  I  could,  one  after  another, 
supplant  the  useless  workers  by  better  ones.  This 
was  of  course  called  a  violation  of  the  democratic 
constitution.  But  as  I  was  paying  the  deficit,  all 
were  aware  that  I  had  a  certain  right  to  do  this. 
In  1905,  after  three  or  four  difficult  years,  things 
began  to  brighten  up,  and  we  commenced  to  make 
profits,  especially  through  the  bakery. 

The  little  community  at  Walden  then  counted 
about  fifty  persons,  women  and  children  included; 
the  whole  area  amounted  to  not  more  than  twenty- 
five  acres.  Moreover,  I  bought  a  dairy  farm  of 
about  fifty  acres,  and  in  the  meanwhile  started 


THE  BREAKDOWN  123 

the  distributive  cooperation  in  Amsterdam,  called 
"De  Eendracht"  ("Unity"),  which  had  become  so 
alarmingly  prosperous  and  for  which  I  was  seeking 
my  Napoleon. 

In  my  mind  all  this  was  one  concern.  I  wanted  to 
organize  it  all  in  one  group,  the  products  of  bakery, 
market  gardening  and  dairy  farm,  rinding  a  market 
among  the  thousands  of  consumers  of  the  "Eend- 
racht," and  the  "Eendracht,"  on  the  other  hand, 
procuring  capital  for  the  extension  of  the  productive 
business. 

This  did  not  look  unpractical  or  Utopian  at 
all.  If  conducted  on  safe  business  lines  it  would 
surely  have  succeeded.  I  had  40,000  contributors, 
a  weekly  collection  of  $2,000,  paid  in  advance, 
for  which  we  provided  the  customers  with  shoes 
and  boots,  household  articles,  furniture,  goods  and 
clothes,  fuel  and  other  articles.  We  produced  for 
them  bread  and  vegetables,  butter  and  milk. 
We  had  stores  in  Amsterdam,  Rotterdam,  and 
The  Hague,  and  agencies  all  over  the  country. 

But  this  union,  as  it  existed  in  my  mind,  was  not 
understood  and  realized  by  the  workers.  The  group 
at  Walden  did  not  care  for  the  "Eendracht,"  which 
they  considered  too  businesslike.  There  was  no 
centralization,  and  there  were  no  expert  managers 
in  the  different  branches.  I  had  only  locked  out 
railway-men,  engine-drivers,  conductors,  and  the 
like.  These  were  not  even  of  the  most  efficient  sort, 


124  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

as  the  railway  companies  obviously  had  not  un- 
loaded their  best  men. 

The  result  was  that  only  a  few  branches  of  the 
business  showed  profits.  The  deficit  at  Walden 
never  amounted  to  more  than  a  few  hundred  dollars. 
I  could  afford  to  pay  that.  But  after  the  first  year 
the  "Eendracht"  showed  a  deficit  of  over  $6,000, 
and  this  was  rather  too  much  for  me.  Bad  manage- 
ment, slovenliness,  theft,  in  a  big  commercial  con- 
cern, can  make  away  with  more  money  than  I  could 
procure  by  literary  efforts. 

I  had  regular  meetings  with  all  the  workers  and 
tried  to  make  them  understand  that  this  was  an 
educational  experiment,  and  that  as  their  theories 
proved  false,  we  had  to  steer  another  course.  I  had 
now  full  proof  that  average  people,  even  if  they  call 
themselves  socialists,  cannot  make  up,  by  common 
effort,  for  the  want  of  commercial  experience  and 
authoritative  management.  So  I  told  them  I  had 
decided  to  run  the  concern  on  strict  business  lines,  as 
I  could  not  afford  to  pay  another  deficit. 

Many  would  think  that  I  was  fully  justified,  after 
this  loss,  to  stop  the  business  and  withdraw.  Yet  this 
would  have  been  extremely  difficult.  For  not  only 
would  it  have  brought  my  employees  out  of  employ- 
ment again,  but  thousands  of  small  contributors 
who  had  put  their  trust  in  me  would  have  lost  their 
savings.  I  could  not  have  shown  my  face  in  Amster- 
dam after  that.  Moreover,  as  I  told  in  another 


THE  BREAKDOWN  125 

chapter,  I  had  just  then  become  a  capitalist,  and  I 
felt  bound  to  pursue. 

But  then  my  employees,  the  locked-out  strikers, 
began  to  obstruct  me  in  my  endeavours  to  help 
them.  They  called  themselves  socialists  and  were 
opposed  to  all  "outsiders,"  as  they  called  them. 
They  were  educated  by  platform-socialists,  social- 
democrats,  and  anarchists  alike,  in  the  notion  of 
"class-war,"  and  this  notion,  whereto  they  clung 
fanatically,  proved  to  be  their  own  undoing.  Any 
manager,  being  more  or  less  a  gentleman,  a  "bour- 
geois" was  considered  as  a  wolf  in  the  sheeps' 
stable.  The  good  managers  wanted  of  course  a 
good  salary  and  the  employees  objected  to  that. 
They  all  wanted  the  same  salary  whatever  work 
they  did.  And  this  salary,  in  a  concern  that  was 
not  even  self-supporting,  could  not  attract  first-rate 
managers. 

In  some  respects  these  people  showed  admirable 
qualities.  For  instance,  they  all  voted  for  reduction 
of  their  salaries  when  I  told  them  that  they  had  to 
choose  between  that  and  reduction  of  the  number  of 
employees.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were  obsti- 
nately stupid  in  their  opposition  to  "outsiders." 
When  I  had  succeeded  in  getting  a  capable  man  — 
and  I  found  more  than  one  willing  to  work  for  a 
lower  price  than  he  could  get  in  the  ordinary  labour 
market  —  the  other  employees  began  a  regular  war 
of  obstruction  against  the  hated  outsider,  until  he 


126  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

gave  up  the  job  in  despair.  These  strikers  used 
their  old  striker  tactics  against  me,  who  worked  only 
for  their  own  benefit.  This  was  the  result  of  the 
teachings  of  the  class-war  socialists. 

I  struggled  for  three  years,  but  of  course  the 
customers  were  ill  served  and  the  credit  of  the  whole 
thing  was  badly  shaken.  The  second  year  gave 
another  deficit,  though  a  smaller  one.  Then  a  man 
came  who  promised  to  set  matters  all  right  and  he 
looked  the  man  to  do  it.  There  was  my  Napoleon, 
turning  up  at  the  critical  moment. 

He  was  a  fine  young  fellow,  strong  and  energetic, 
with  a  face  and  manners  inspiring  confidence.  He 
had  been  in  different  trades,  and  showed  experience 
in  all  sorts  of  business.  He  was  an  expert  in  book- 
keeping and  administration.  His  working  power, 
as  he  told  me  and  I  had  occasion  to  verify,  was  un- 
limited. He  came  to  me  offering  me  his  assist- 
ance, out  of  sympathy  and  devotion  to  my  cause, 
as  he  had  perceived  the  straits  wherein  I  was 
struggling. 

As  an  autodidact  he  had  rather  a  good  opinion 
about  himself  and  his  abilities,  but  this  I  could  easily 
forgive. 

I  began  to  use  him  as  a  private  secretary,  and  in 
that  occupation  I  could  not  find  that  he  had  over- 
rated himself,  nor  that  his  appearance  was  belied 
by  his  qualities. 

He  was  accurate,  active,  full  of  initiative,  thor- 


THE  BREAKDOWN  127 

oughly  honest  and  disinterested,  and  his  zeal  to  serve 
me  was  really  touching. 

Then  I  introduced  him  into  the  management  of 
the  "Eendracht"  business. 

Now  this  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  subordinate 
workers  have  generally  a  very  keen  and  quick  in- 
tuition about  the  qualities  of  their  leaders.  They 
cannot  formulate  it,  nor  criticise  justly,  but  they 
feel  uneasy  as  soon  as  the  man  who  is  to  lead  them 
lacks  the  real  power  to  do  it. 

In  this  case  there  was  a  strong  opposition  from  a 
part  of  the  workers  to  my  young  Napoleon.  Only 
a  few  submitted  willingly  to  his  authority  and  be- 
came devoted  to  him.  At  Walden,  where  I  tried 
him  first,  the  opposition  was  so  strong  that  he  felt 
obliged  to  resign.  -  But  as  these  people  objected  to 
any  leadership,  it  was  not  proof  that  they  were  right 
in  this  case. 

In  the  "Eendracht,"  where  anarchy  had  brought 
matters  to  such  dangerous  excesses,  I  felt  obliged  to 
maintain  authority  with  a  strong  hand. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  workers  I  explained  that  they 
had  to  choose  between  my  immediate  withdrawal 
with  all  its  consequences  or  absolute  submission  to 
the  measures  I  felt  necessary  to  take. 

And  all  these  men  who  had  been  so  eager  to  take 
part  in  the  management  of  the  business  now  at  once 
gave  up  all  their  rights,  in  order  to  leave  the  respon- 
sibility entirely  to  me.  They  submitted  meekly  and 


128  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

my  young  ruler  took  the  reins  and  began  his  work  of 
reorganization. 

In  the  first  weeks  all  went  marvellously.  Some  of 
the  worst  characters  were  dismissed,  and  perfect 
order  began  apparently  to  reign.  My  admiration 
for  my  helpmate  increased,  his  activity  was  really 
astonishing.  One  other  man  of  administrative  power 
who  had  helped  me  thus  far  —  let  me  call  him  M.— 
expressed  his  satisfaction  at  the  new  rule,  and  I  felt 
confident  that  everything  would  come  right  at  last. 

Able  business  men  who  had  dealings  with  our  con- 
cern complimented  and  congratulated  me  with  my 
young  manager.  He  had  winning  ways  and  his  as- 
surance and  decision  convinced  most  people  of  his 
real  abilities. 

But  fate  was  preparing  a  well-contrived  and  con- 
cealed pitfall  for  me. 

I  was  well  aware  that  the  weakness  of  my  young 
Napoleon  consisted  in  his  too  great  self-confidence. 
I  also  perceived  his  propensity  to  rather  reckless  and 
all  too  energetic  measures.  Yet  there  was  the  other 
man  M.,  who  was  very  intelligent,  and  though  he  had 
not  the  commanding  and  pushing  force  of  the  other, 
was  the  more  careful,  the  more  prudent,  and  in  fact 
the  more  far-sighted  of  the  two. 

I  succeeded  in  establishing  good  relations  between 
these  two,  appointing  to  each  his  function,  and  then 
at  last  I  felt  relieved  and  at  liberty  to  take  a  few 
weeks'  vacation,  devoted  to  my  literary  work. 


THE  BREAKDOWN  129 

I  had  a  big  drama  in  my  head,  a  drama  wherein 
the  great  struggle  of  humanity,  the  struggle  between 
the  two  parts  of  mankind,  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
the  masters  and  the  slaves,  was  represented. 

This  drama  is  called  "Minnestral"  ("Ray  of 
Love")  and  was  written  in  Langenschwalbach  in 
Germany,  in  the  six  weeks  during  which  my  Napo- 
leon was  preparing  his  Austerlitz,  which  proved  to 
be  Waterloo. 

The  second  manager  M.  was  of  a  delicate  con- 
stitution. The  great  strain  of  his  work  was  too 
much  for  him.  He  fell  ill  after  the  first  weeks  of 
the  reorganization  and  had  to  go  to  a  sanatorium  for 
consumption.  He  has  died  since.  My  young  Na- 
poleon was  left  entirely  to  his  own  devices.  When 
I  came  back  with  the  finished  drama  in  my  pocket 
I  saw  at  once  that  instead  of  setting  matters  all  right 
again  he  had  struck  the  final  blow  and  that  the  end 
was  near. 

My  new  general  manager,  instead  of  carefully 
limiting  the  business  until  the  leaks  were  stopped, 
had  extended  it  in  a  most  reckless  way,  establishing 
a  splendid  new  storehouse  and  buying  up  another 
firm,  which  had  started  a  similar  organization  in 
order  to  run  us  down. 

This  competitive  firm  was  started  a  year  ago  by 
the  restaurant  keeper  who  had  been  in  our  own  con- 
cern but  had  deserted  me.  He  knew  our  method 
and  organization  and  imitated  it  with  some  apparent 


i3o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

success.  As  a  matter  of  fact  their  structure  was  still 
less  solid  than  ours.  Not  trusting  my  own  capac- 
ities as  a  business  man  I  had  refused  the  temptation 
to  buy  up  other  firms,  though  I  had  several  offers. 
And  I  had  warned  my  new  general  manager.  But 
he,  conscious  of  his  power  and  ability,  was  exuberant 
when  our  rivals,  who  called  themselves  "  Volharding" 
(" Persistence"),  came  to  him  and  wanted  to  sur- 
render, as  they  felt  they  could  not  fight  him.  Very 
much  flattered,  he  agreed  to  conditions  which  proved 
a  monstrous  swindle. 

These  two  moves  —  the  new  storehouse  and  the 
buying  up  of  our  rivals  —  proved  fatal.  Moreover, 
the  new  general-manager  had  allowed  the  heads  of 
some  departments  to  buy  on  their  own  responsibility, 
without  control,  discarding  the  rule  imposed  by  my- 
self that  all  buying  had  to  be  executed  —  or  O.K.'d 
—  by  headquarters. 

Within  six  months  of  the  new  management  the 
debts  of  the  firm  had  grown  from  twenty  thousand  to 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  the  weekly  contribu- 
tions did  not  increase,  to  raise  capital  under  these 
circumstances  was  out  of  the  question,  and  payments 
were  stopped.  In  order  to  continue  the  sale  of 
goods  to  the  poor  people  who  would  have  made  a 
tremendous  rush  to  get  back  their  small  savings,  I 
could  by  earnest  entreaty  induce  a  meeting  of  the  big 
creditors  to  give  me  a  delay.  They  even  consented 
to  supply  a  part  of  their  account  as  new  capital.  I 


THE  BREAKDOWN  131 

myself  ventured  another  ten  thousand  to  save  the 
situation.  I  was  then  in  my  short  career  as  a  cap- 
italist. 

But  it  was  too  late.  In  another  few  months  bank- 
ruptcy was  declared.  The  judges  convinced  of  my 
disinterestedness  treated  me  fairly.  They  allowed  a 
transaction  which  would  have  seemed  very  suspicious 
in  any  other  case.  The  case  was  indeed  difficult,  as 
the  40,000  contributors  who  had  all  given  small  sums 
in  advance  had  to  be  considered  as  creditors.  Most 
of  them  were  labourers,  and  to  pay  them  off  with 
30  per  cent,  like  the  big  creditors  would  have  caused 
something  like  an  uproar  and  would  have  discredited 
me  forever  —  as  they  all  had  trusted  in  me.  So  I 
was  allowed  to  buy  from  the  firm  all  the  stores  and 
goods  on  my  private  name,  promising  thereby  to  pay 
off  the  big  creditors  with  30  per  cent,  and  the  small 
contributors  with  100  per  cent.  Then  the  bank- 
ruptcy was  raised.  This  transaction  cost  me  $100,- 
ooo,  but  the  small  savings-holders  were  all  paid  off 
until  the  last  cent  and  the  confidence  in  me  remained 
unshaken.  I  sold  the  shops  and  goods  to  different 
people,  and  the  organization,  in  the  form  of  a  savings 
bank,  to  the  young  general-manager,  in  whose 
honesty  I  had  always  continued  to  believe.  He  is 
running  that  business  still,  and  after  the  severe 
lesson  which  he  had,  at  my  cost,  he  now  manages  to 
make  it  pay.  The  stores  are  still  prosperous,  in 
other  hands,  and  without  any  cooperative  character. 


132  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

The  lesson  was  not  less  severe  to  me,  as  the  sum  I 
had  to  pay  surpassed  my  means  by  more  than  half, 
and  I,  who  had  never  any  debt  worth  mention  in  my 
life,  will  be  obliged  to  work  very  hard  and  live  very 
soberly  if  I  will  see  my  debts  paid  off  before  I  die. 

The  property  of  Walden  became  of  course  heavily 
mortgaged  in  the  course  of  this  affair.  It  never 
rains  but  it  pours.  An  excellent  manager  for  the 
Walden  plant  whom  I  had  succeeded  in  getting  ac- 
cepted by  the  colonists  took  his  leave  the  next  day 
after  my  risky  situation  had  become  known.  Then 
the  colonists  themselves  began  to  make  trouble.  Out 
of  my  legacy  I  had  built  a  fine  new  installation  with 
electric  power,  providing  the  whole  colony  with  light, 
which  cost  me  some  $20,000.  But  the  bakers  for 
whom  I  had  built  it  secretly  established  a  smaller 
concern  of  their  own  in  the  village  close  by,  and  on 
the  given  day  they  removed,  taking  with  them  their 
savings  and,  what  was  more  important,  their  cus- 
tomers, leaving  on  my  hands  a  costly  installation 
without  workmen  and  without  a  market.  In  this 
way  the  only  source  of  revenue  which  was  left  to  me 
besides  my  own  labour  was  dried  up  also.  My  short 
career  as  a  capitalist  had  lasted  about  nine  months 
and  I  had  to  begin  anew,  with  a  considerable  account 
on  the  wrong  side  of  my  bank  book. 

All  this  was  of  course  supremely  unpleasant,  especi- 
ally because  it  touched  my  nearest  relatives,  whom  I 
could  not  keep  out  of  the  trouble,  and  who  were  not 


THE  BREAKDOWN  133 

consoled  by  my  belief  that  I  had  done  something  of 
importance  and  instruction  for  the  benefit  of  man- 
kind. They  had  to  share  my  responsibility  without 
sharing  my  convictions. 

Had  I  been  a  young  business  man  I  would  have 
considered  it  all  as  belonging  to  the  necessary  vicis- 
situdes and  hardships  of  the  struggle  for  success. 
Many  an  experienced  man  of  business,  when  I  told 
my  story,  said,  smiling:  "Well,  this  is  the  usual 
apprenticeship,  the  ordinary  school  we  all  had  to 
pass  before  we  learned  how  to  select  and  manage 
men,  and  to  make  a  business  successful." 

To  me,  being  devoted  to  art  and  science  and  be- 
yond  the  middle  of  my  life,  it  was  a  different  thing. 
Most  of  all  I  was  annoyed  by  the  attitude  of  the 
public,  who  could  not  see,  of  course,  that  all  this 
misfortune  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  truth  of  my 
contentions,  with  the  guiding  principles  of  my  en- 
deavours, with  the  possibility  of  the  thing  I  had  in 
mind.  They  simply  rejoiced  because  it  all  seemed 
to  them,  most  unjustly,  a  decisive  and  convincing 
proof  that  I  had  been  entirely  wrong,  that  my  ideas 
and  aims  were  impossible  and  unattainable,  and 
that  I  was  nothing  but  a  well  meaning  but  thoroughly 
unpractical  dreamer  and  schemer. 

On  the  other  hand,  exactly  because  I  was  not  a 
business  man,  but  a  man  of  science,  and  because  I 
felt  conscious  of  the  purity  of  my  aims,  I  found  it  all 
easier  to  bear. 


i34  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

In  my  medical  practice  I  often  had  occasion  to 
treat  business  men  who  were  entirely  broken  down 
by  the  same  sort  of  misfortune.  Having  worked 
strenuously  for  their  own  benefit,  a  serious  failure 
made  them  lose  all  interest  in  life  and  see  no  other 
end  but  suicide.  I  had  known  such  cases,  being 
sometimes  unable  to  keep  them  from  the  final  act 
of  despair.  And  I  had  smiled  at  them,  wondering 
how  a  man  could  want  to  die  in  such  an  interesting 
position.  This  was  what  I  said  literally  to  the  man 
from  whom  I  bought  the  Walden  estate. 

And  how  far  more  interesting  was  this  position 
to  me  who  had  never  given  much  attention  before 
this  experiment  to  the  financial  part  of  life.  It  was 
all  full  of  instruction,  widening  my  views,  testing 
my  convictions,  and  surely  not  shaking  in  the  least 
my  faith  in  the  ultimate  success  of  future  similar 
efforts. 

I  had  failed,  simply  because  I  was  found  wanting 
as  a  business  manager.  But  expert  business  mana- 
gers are  not  lacking  in  our  days,  so  if  I,  an  amateur, 
could  yet  do  as  much  and  succeed  thus  far,  why  in 
the  world  could  my  plan  not  be  carried  through 
most  successfully  when  the  necessary  able  men  were 
secured? 

The  most  wholesome  and  direct  result  of  my  work 
was  the  impression  it  made  on  the  labouring  class. 
Of  course  the  partisans  of  the  different  socialistic 
creeds  believed  their  leaders  and  put  the  blame  on 


THE  BREAKDOWN  135 

me.  A  good  partisan  must  be  proof  against  facts 
and  arguments  however  irreputable. 

But  the  labourer  of  average  common  sense  and 
independent  judgment  now  saw  it  demonstrated 
that  in  matters  of  business  —  on  which  we  all  have 
to  rely  for  our  subsistence  —  good  intentions,  honest 
principles  and  strenuous  effort  are  not  sufficient. 
Minds  of  organizing  power  are  wanted,  and  they  are 
not  to  be  found  among  the  labouring  class,  because 
the  great  demand  for  their  abilities  makes  them 
quickly  rise  above  it,  and  come  to  wealth  and 
power. 

The  clear-minded' labourer  now  saw  the  stupid 
absurdity  of  a  "class  hatred"  which  beforehand 
excluded  those  powerful  men  whose  capacities  were 
absolutely  needed  to  make  a  new  productive  organ- 
ization successful. 

He  saw  the  suicidal  character  of  a  "class  war"  as 
preached  by  social-democrats  and  anarchists.  He 
also  saw  proven  before  his  eyes  how  absurd  the  con- 
tention was  of  those  idealists  who  supposed  that  by 
a  general  strike,  by  abolishing  all  authority  and  all 
law,  mankind  as  it  is  now  could  come  to  order  and 
efficiency  by  itself. 

He  understood  that  a  careful  training  in  demo- 
cratic and  cooperative  methods  was  wanted,  and 
that  even  a  political  overthrow,  a  majority  of  social- 
democrats  in  the  Government  and  a  socialistic  leg- 
islature would  be  entirely  unable  to  bring  about  at 


i36  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

once,  as  by  miracle,  what  only  a  long,  patient  edu- 
cation could  effect. 

Of  course  this  had  been  said  many  times  before. 
But  it  had  been  said  by  more  or  less  interested  people 
by  business  men,  politicians,  economists,  all  under 
suspicion  of  conservative  or  egotistic  tendencies.  In 
my  case  there  could  be  no  such  suspicions.  I  had 
given  ample  proof  of  my  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the 
poor  and  the  struggling  workers.  There  never  was 
good  reason  to  doubt  my  sincerity.  So  these  con- 
victions, freely  expressed  by  me  as  the  result  of  my 
personal  experience  —  and  published  in  a  small 
weekly  paper  originally  started  by  me,  and  called 
De  Pionier  —  struck  both  labourers  and  business  men 
with  new  light  and  force. 

I  agreed  to  the  necessity  of  able  management, 
severe  discipline,  businesslike  methods,  but  at  the 
same  time  I  did  not  deviate  one  hair's  breadth  from 
the  indicated  course,  the  liberation  of  the  oppressed 
poor,  the  abolishment  of  the  social  abuses,  the  end 
of  the  empire  of  rank  plutocracy. 

There  appeared  to  me,  however,  no  chance  to  make 
another  effort  in  Holland.  All  that  I  could  do  there, 
and  what  I  am  actually  doing  there  now,  Is  to  keep 
the  concern  of  Walden  going,  under  its  heavy  obli- 
gations, to  reorganize  it,  now  under  my  personal 
ownership  and  direction,  in  order  to  satisfy  my 
creditors. 

But  for  the  next  experiment  I  looked  toward  the 


THE  BREAKDOWN  137 

great  country  of  experiments,  where  freedom  is  in 
the  make,  where  there  is  no  lack  of  energy,  plenty  of 
good-will  and  optimism,  and  a  great  number  of  able, 
well-intentioned  men. 

America,  moreover,  offers  opportunities  like  no 
other  country  in  the  world,  and  though  an  organiza- 
tion of  the  kind  I  had  in  mind  could  be  carried 
through  anywhere,  if  the  right  men  were  found  to 
do  it,  the  chances  of  success  would  be  greatly  in- 
creased if  we  could  find  one  of  those  favourable 
occasions  where  business  is  known  to  prosper  even 
in  average  hands.  We  want  lines  of  least  resistance 
in  all  respects.  In  America  there  are  still  millions 
of  acres  of  cheap  fertile  soil,  there  is  still  a  constant 
influx  of  fresh,  sober,  unspoiled,  unsophisticated 
workers  —  and  I  felt  sure  that  there  could  also  be 
found  a  few  great  business  leaders,  captains  of  in- 
dustry, who  would  use  their  intellectual  gifts  not 
only  for  the  benefit  of  themselves  and  their  families, 
but  also  for  humanity  at  large,  when  their  own  wants 
were  sufficiently  provided  for. 

So  I  came  to  America,  and  I  felt  that  if  I  could 
make  my  troubles  and  sorrows  useful  and  fruitful 
here  there  would  be  no  loss  of  money  nor  of  effort. 
It  would  make  all  good  what  I  had  suffered  and  I 
would  not  repent  what  I  had  done  nor  complain  of 
what  I  had  undergone. 


PART  II 
IN  THE  NEW  WORLD 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    SCHEME    FOR    AMERICA 

IN   GIVING   the  details  of    my   new   plan   for 
realizing    Happy  Humanity,   after  the  failure 
made  in  Holland,  I  hope  the  reader  will  allow 
me  to  point  out  its  significance. 

The  new  organization  will  be  called  the  Coopera- 
tive Company  of  America,  or  some  such  name. 
The  title  indicates  that  it  is  a  business  concern.  No 
creed  or  political  doctrine  will  be  associated  with  it, 
except  the  creed  tha.t  every  normal  hi?™ air-being 
holcjs^--  that  of  honesty  and  fairness. 

We  will  start  with  ITgroup  ol  market-gardeners, 
and  the  land  selected  for  that  purpose  lies  in  North 
Carolina,  near  the  city  of  Wilmington.  The  op- 
portunity there  is  exceptionally  favourable.  Col- 
onization has  been  tried  there,  for  several  years, 
with  much  success.  Italian,  Dutch,  and  German 
settlers  have  there  attained  prosperity  by  truck- 
gardening.  It  is  a  great  strawberry-raising  country, 
and  the  soil  is  fit  for  the  culture  of  the  most  varied 
plants  and  vegetables.  The  climate  is  like  that  of 
Italy,  and  the  rainfall  abundant.  Excellent  fast 

141 


142  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

trains,  with  refrigerator-cars,  place  the  country 
within  easy  reach  of  the  greatest  markets  of  the 
whole  continent. 

The  preliminaj-j^jwprk  for  colonization,  which 
would  have  given  us  great  expense,  is  already  done, 
and  we  can  take  advantage  of  the  experience  of 
others. 

Here,  if  anywhere,  are  lines  of  least  resistance, 
and  we  have  secured  an  option  on  about  twenty- 
thousand  acres  of  land  at  a  price  of  from  $15  to 
$20  an  acre.  After  a  few  years  of  cultivation  the 
value  should  increase  to  $200  or  #300  an  acre,  and 
more. 

Our  intention  is  to  select  a  group  of  high-class 
gardeners,  experts  in  intensive  farming,  and  let 
them  have  this  land  as  tenants.  We  shall  be  able 
to  select  twenty-five  families,  of  the  very  best,  and 
locate  them  next  to  one  another  on  plots  of  about 
ten  acres  each. 

These  people  should  be  immigrants,  as  yet  un- 
spoiled by  contact  with  city  life.  Since  Hollanders 
have  a  high  reputation  as  intensive  gardeners  and 
generally  excellent  qualities  for  settlers,  it  was  con- 
sidered best  to  select  this  advance  guard  from  my 
own  country.  And  I  know  now,  after  some  months 
of  investigation  in  Holland,  that  I  can  get  hundreds 
of  families,  willing  and  eager  to  come.  In  fact, 
a  little  group  of  half  a  dozen  first-rate  men  have 
already  answered  my  call  and  have  settled  there  at 


THE  SCHEME  FOR  AMERICA          143 

their  own  expense.  They  will  do  excellent  work 
as  prospectors  and  advisers. 

They  will  pay  no  more  than  a  fixed  rent,  which 
will  never  be  increased  to  them.  The  settler  will 
have  the  full  reward  of  his  efforts.  When,  after 
one  or  two  years,  he  proves  to  be  a  desirable  member 
of  the  new  organization,  he  will  become  a  condi- 
tional owner  and  stockholder  of  the  company. 

Therein  lies  the  essential  and  vital  point  of  the 
whole  experiment.  This  is  the  one  feature  which 
distinguishes  it  from  all  similar  enterprises  and  its 
effect  has  to  be  tried. 

The  usual  form  of  colonization  is  simply  to  sell 
the  land  to  the  settler,  the  price  to  be  paid  from  his 
earnings  in  a  certain  number  of  years.  Then  the 
man  becomes  a  landlord,  and  is  left  entirely  to  his  own 
devices,  his  own  sense  of  justice  and  responsibility. 
What  this  means,  with  the  raw  material  of  immi- 
grants annually  let  loose  on  American  soil,  is  shown 
clearly  and  sadly  enough  by  the  immense  waste 
and  reckless  spoliation  of  the  vast  resources  of  this 
rich  country. 

So  what  we  are  going  to  try  now  is  conditional 
ownership,  under  control  of  a  cooperatively  organized 
company,  in  the  following  way: 

The  tenant  will  have  full  freedom  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  his  farm.  He  may  have  all  the  rights  of 
practical  ownership,  with  the  exception  of  selling, 
renting,  and  neglecting  the  property.  He  will  be 


144  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

able  to  leave  the  property  to  his  heirs,  if  these  accept 
the  same  conditions.  If  he  wants  to  leave,  the  com- 
pany will  pay  for  his  improvements.  He  need  never 
pay  more  rent  than  a  small  sum,  amounting  to  a 
percentage  of  the  original  amount  paid  by  the 
company.  This  might  be  considered  as  a  tax  —  a 
truly  just  and  fair  single  tax,  levied  by  the  company 
for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  organization. 

We  believe  that  the  compensation  we  can  give 
for  the  want  of  the  full  title  will  prove  to  be  more 
attractive  to  the  intelligent  farmer  than  uncon- 
trolled rights  of  possession.  This  compensation  will 
consist  in  the  right  to  hold  the  dividend-paying 
stock.  The  tenant  who  may  become  a  stockholder 
will  then  not  be  an  owner  of  the  land;  but  in  common 
with  the  other  members  he  will  own  the  stock  repre- 
senting it.  And  he  will  profit  by  all  the  activities 
of  the  whole  company,  whether  agricultural,  in- 
dustrial, or  commercial.  The  company  will,  more- 
over, act  as  a  disinterested  agent  and  market  his 
products  for  him,  so  that  he  may  give  all  of  his 
attention  to  his  farm.  The  company  will  also  buy 
for  him  at  wholesale  his  supplies,  seeds,  fertilizer, 
implements,  household  goods,  etc.,  and  share  with 
him  the  benefits  of  this  community  of  interests. 
All  these  advantages  are  given  in  compensation  for 
a  limitation  of  his  ownership,  which  is,  in  fact,  noth- 
ing but  a  control. 

It  is  worth  trying,  and  more  so  than  any  social 


THE  SCHEME  FOR  AMERICA  145 

improvement  I  know  of.  If,  well  conducted,  it 
should  fail,  then  we  have  a  reason  for  giving  up  our 
belief  in  democracy. 

This  sort  of  cooperation  has  been  tried  in  Europe 
and  America,  and  generally  very  successfully.  It 
is  often  said  that  cooperation  abolishes  the  middle- 
man. But  this  is  untrue.  It  simply  gives  the 
middleman  his  fair  due,  and  no  more.  When,  as  in 
France,  shirts  are  made  at  a  cost  of  twenty-five 
cents  for  material  and  labour,  and  sold  wholesale 
for  fifty-five  cents,  giving  the  labourer  seven  cents 
wage  for  two  hours'  work  and  the  merchant  twenty 
cents  net  profit — -nobody  can  call  this  fair.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  get  such  profits  if  all  people 
concerned,  producers  and  consumers  alike,  were 
consulted  in  the  matter.  In  order  to  make  such 
profits,  the  merchant  has  to  cheat  his  labourers  and 
his  clients.  This  is  what  cooperation  corrects. 

The  company  will  employ  middlemen,  of  course, 
and  pay  them  a  fair  remuneration,  but  it  will  tell 
both  producer  and  consumer  what  its  prices  are  — 
cost  price,  wholesale  and  retail  price  —  and  how 
much  percentage  it  has  to  take  as  commission  for 
its  service. 

By  this  commission  the  company  will  make  its 
profits,  besides  the  single  tax  on  the  tenants  before 
mentioned.  This  implies  that  increasing  produc- 
tion, and  also  increased  prosperity  with  increasing 
requirements  of  its  members,  will  increase  its  budget 


i46  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

and  its  profits.  The  more  goods  it  sells,  either  to 
outsiders  or  to  members,  the  wealthier  it  will  be- 
come. And  from  these  profits,  which  would  be 
regulated  within  the  margin  of  the  outside  market, 
will  be  formed,  in  the  first  place,  a  sinking  fund  for 
the  amortization  of  the  original  debt;  then  one  part 
as  a  dividend  for  preferred  stock,  another  for  div- 
idends to  common-stock  holders,  a  third  part  for 
invalid  and  old-age  pensions  and  insurance,  and  a 
part  for  the  extension  of  the  business.  A  banking 
department  will  be  established  as  soon  as  possible. 

The  company  will  be  constituted  of  two  sorts  of 
members  —  tenants  who  work  entirely  independ- 
ently, and  the  employees  who  receive  regular  wages, 
according  to  the  labour  market.  My  experiments 
have  plainly  shown  that  it  is  entirely  impractical 
and  ruinous  to  bring  an  entire  change  into  the 
ordinary  remuneration  of  wage-earning  employees. 
We  shall  have  to  follow  the  outside  labour  market 
—  however  unfair  that  may  be  —  for  the  present, 
because  we  cannot  otherwise  attract  men  of  ability 
to  our  enterprise. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  will  never  do  to  pay  a  farmer 
a  fixed  wage  for  his  labour.  It  invariably  lessens 
his  efficiency.  He  must  be  dependent  on  his  pro- 
duction and  even  liable  to  eviction  if  he  is  not  able 
to  make  his  farm  pay.  This,  also,  was  the  positive 
outcome  of  my  own  experiment. 

Only  the  distinction  of  tenant  members  and  in- 


THE  SCHEME  FOR  AMERICA  147 

dustrial  and  administrative  employees,  as  proposed, 
will  meet  all  the  difficulties. 

The  immense  concerns  of  distributive  cooper- 
ation in  England  and  Belgium  show  what  can  be 
done  even  with  average  management.  The  annual 
net  profits  of  the  Cooperative  Wholesale  Societies 
in  the  United  Kingdom  amount  to  twenty  million 
dollars.  These  societies,  however,  do  not  under- 
take agriculture  and  real-estate  ownership,  as  we 
propose.  They  divide  their  profits  among  the  mem- 
bers, making  it  a  profit-business  without  wider 
scope.  Their  trouble  is  that  they  do  not  know  how 
to  invest,  which  sounds  rather  paradoxical.  Their 
profits  bother  them,  because  their  organization  is 
incomplete. 

Distributive  wholesale  cooperation  is  compara- 
tively easy  for  ordinary  business  management. 
These  huge  wholesale  societies  are  made  up  of 
ordinary  labourers  or  middle-class  people,  and  their 
managers  are  selected  from  among  themselves, 
doing  wonderfully  well  in  their  position,  but  not 
being  organizers  of  great  ability. 

It  is  exactly  this  feature  in  which  our  plan  will 
surpass  them.  It  will  be  complete  cooperation, 
including  the  production  of  the  goods  wanted  by  its 
members  on  the  soil  and  in  the  factories  owned  by 
the  company  itself. 

This  greater  conception  can  be  executed  only  by 
organizers  and  leaders  of  great  ability.  I  do  not 


148  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

see  that  there  can  be  imagined  a  task  more  worthy 
of  a  great  genius,  a  "captain  of  industry." 

But  the  rare  discernment  needed  to  discover 
business  abilities  is  certainly  lacking  in  the  mul- 
titude, and  business  organization  by  democratic 
method  is  at  the  present  time  utterly  impossible. 
I  have  myself  suffered  from  its  pernicious  effect. 

For  this  reason  it  will  be  necessary  to  leave  the 
authority  in  our  company  in  the  beginning  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  initiated  it.  The  board 
of  trustees  will  appoint  the  manager,  who  is  re- 
sponsible only  to  them.  The  stockholding  mem- 
bers will  be  chosen  on  recommendations  of  the 
manager,  by  the  same  board. 

Gradually,  however,  education  in  democracy  will 
begin.  The  settlers,  who  will  have  no  part  in  the 
management  in  the  beginning,  will  later  acquire  the 
right  to  vote  and  choose  new  members  of  the  board 
of  trustees,  to  whom  they  will  always  have  access. 

The  safeguard  for  fair  treatment  and  good  man- 
agement must  be  found  in  confidence  in  the  initia- 
tors of  the  plan  and  the  open  discussion  of  its  scope 
and  aims. 

Moreover,  there  is  a  safeguard  in  the  public 
opinion  and  the  public  attention.  Enterprises  like 
this,  with  a  motive  of  general  interest,  are  always 
supported  by  public  opinion.  It  was  public  opinion 
which  caused  the  all-too-rapid  boom  of  my  coop- 
erative enterprise  in  Amsterdam,  but  it  was  public 


THE  SCHEME  FOR  AMERICA  149 

faith  in  my  disinterestedness  that  made  the  final 
blow  less  hard  than  it  would  otherwise  have  been. 

Since  our  board  of  trustees  will  be  constituted 
by  men  of  high  standing  and  reputation,  the  public 
will  back  the  company  whenever  possible  —  by 
buying  its  products  or  protecting  it  by  legislation. 
If,  however,  the  original  aim  is  disregarded,  the 
support  of  the  public  will  surely  be  withdrawn. 

I  dare  maintain  that  the  chances  for  survival  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  will  always  be  greater 
in  the  organization  proposed  by  me  than  in  any 
other.  Given  the  same  outward  circumstances  and 
the  same  good  management,  this  form  of  organi- 
zation will  always  win,  simply  because  it  is 
more  complete  and  more  fair.  For  one  thing,  it 
keeps  all  the  profits  within  the  business,  as  soon  as 
the  debt  to  the  investors  is  paid  off.  There  are  no 
leaks.  Nothing  is  wasted  to  land-owners,  to  uncon- 
trolled and  irresponsible  middlemen,  nor  to  inactive 
outsiders.  The  stockholders  who  get  the  dividends 
will  themselves  work  to  increase  them,  and  they  will 
spend  their  dividends  in  buying  goods  from  the 
company  and  so  increase  its  prosperity. 

The  incentive  for  work  will  be  greater  than  in  any 
other  concern,  because  the  company  will  give  not 
only  the  usual  rewards,  like  any  other  business,  but 
every  member  is  sure  that  his  production  will  not  be 
wasted  by  outsiders,  and  all  his  efforts  will  strike 
home  in  the  full  sense. 


150  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

The  larger  the  concern  grows,  the  less  will  be  the 
waste  in  competition  and  advertising.  An  organi- 
zation of  producers  and  consumers  need  not  ad- 
vertise; its  members  can  look,  themselves,  after  the 
methods  of  production  and  the  quality  of  articles 
produced. 

The  prosperity  of  the  members  will  increase  the 
prosperity  of  the  company,  because  they  will  want 
more  and  buy  more,  and  vice  versa;  because  higher 
dividends  will  mean  wealthier  members.  There 
will  be  no  vicious  circle,  like  in  the  present  defective 
organization,  where  waste  is  engendering  idleness 
and  idleness  waste;  but  a  beneficial  circle  which  will 
increase  wealth  and  efficiency  in  a  measure  unknown 
thus  far.  It  will  grow  —  after  the  first  difficult 
years  have  passed  —  like  a  rolling  snowball.  Its  ac- 
cumulation will  accelerate  at  a  rate  that  has  never 
been  seen  before,  and  can  never  be  seen  elsewhere  - 
simply  because  its  organization  is  more  perfect. 

That  all  this  is  true  theoretically,  no  one  can 
deny.  The  objection  will  be  that  it  has  not  yet 
been  shown  in  practice,  and  that  the  plan  in  work- 
ing will  reveal  unforeseen  difficulties. 

The  only  thing  wanted  is  experiment,  repeated 
tenaciously  and  methodically. 

And  I  cannot  conceive  an  object  for  experiment 
more  important,  more  eagerly  wanted  by  struggling 
humanity,  than  a  better  form  of  organized  produc- 
tion and  distribution. 


THE  SCHEME  FOR  AMERICA  151 

It  will  not  only  correct  idleness  and  waste;  it 
will  have  immense  moral  and  educational  value. 
It  will  enable  us  to  stop  making  paupers,  criminals, 
and  spendthrifts.  It  will  enable  us  to  prevent  un- 
employment, for  unemployment  is  the  result  of 
production  at  random,  without  thorough  control 
and  knowledge  of  the  market.  A  well-organized 
company  will  take  care  to  regulate  production  for 
its  own  market,  so  that  no  unemployment  can  set 
in,  and  it  will  shift  its  unskilled  and  half-skilled 
workers  from  one  department  to  another,  according 
to  season  or  circumstance.  Overproduction  will 
not  create  enforced  idleness  and  starvation,  but  in- 
creased leisure  and  prosperity  to  all. 

To  be  strongly  and  effectively  organized  must  be 
and  remain  its  first  concern.  All  philanthropic  or 
sentimental  considerations  are  to  come  after  that. 
The  best  philanthropy  is  that  which  shows  men  how 
to  help  themselves.  So  the  company  will  not  start 
with  inefficient  workers,  and  will  not  extend  more 
rapidly  than  proper  organization  allows.  It  will 
take  care  of  its  own  invalids  who  become  so  in 
working  for  the  company,  but  it  will  not  begin  to 
take  care  of  the  victims  of  present  social  disorder,  for 
those  invalids  are  made  so  by  the  existing  system. 
It  will  never  stop  growing  so  long  as  it  may  expand 
safely,  nor  consider  its  final  perfection  reached  so 
long  as  there  is  one  necessary  article  of  life  not  pro- 
duced by  its  own  members,  or  one  poor  worker 


i5 2  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

eager  to  join.  This  means,  of  course,  that  final  per- 
fection will  be  practically  unattainable,  and  would 
signify  nothing  less  than  a  state  within  a  state. 
But  there  lies  no  serious  objection  in  this.  States 
within  states  we  see  everywhere;  and  provided  they 
keep  on  good  terms  with  each  other  and  strive  for 
the  good,  they  cannot  be  considered  dangerous  or 
undesirable. 

The  comprehensiveness  of  the  plan  need  scare 
nobody,  surely  not  an  American.  Even  if  the  goal 
were  approached  halfway,  the  benefit  to  mankind 
would  be  enormous;  and  no  doubt  a  very  useful 
emulation  would  ensue,  giving  rise  to  similar 
organizations  of  different  degrees  of  perfection. 

All  this  is  theoretically  possible,  and  whatever 
may  be  the  difficulties  to  overcome  or  the  failures 
we  may  have  to  "make  good,"  no  effort  and  no 
amount  of  money  can  be  considered  wasted  given 
to  a  project  so  high  and  beneficial. 

I,  for  one,  would  not  deem  my  life  ill-spent  if  I 
could  contribute  only  a  small  share  to  the  attain- 
ment of  such  a  great  aim. 


CHAPTER  II 

CO-PRODUCTION 

Its  Moral,  Motives,  and  Results 

THE  greatest  difficulty  encountered  by  me 
in  my  endeavours  to  carry  through  my 
plans  was  the  habitual  inertia  of  the  hu-^ 
man  mind.  There  is  no  lack  of  good-will,  no  lack 
of  strength,  no  lack  of  ability.  But  people  do  not 
see  that  the  present  system  in  which  they  are 
working  is  wrong.  They  do  not  see  that  it  is  in  con- 
tradiction with  their  own  inmost  feelings  of  justice 
and  fairness.  They  do  not  see  that  the  defects  of 
this  system  are  the  cause  of  most  human  misery, 
and  that  they  —  in  continuing  to  work  in  it  and  to 
profit  by  it  —  actually  bear,  and  load  upon  their 
wives  and  children  who  are  dependent  upon  their 
work,  the  heavy  burden  of  responsibility  for  those 
social  sores  and  wrongs  which  they  nearly  all  hate 
and  want  to  mend. 

The  first  thing  that  is  needed  is  an  insight  into 
the  fact  that  social  evils  are  corrigible  and  that  they 
are  still  existent  only  because  we  all  tolerate  and 
refuse  to  change  a  corrupt  system  of  production. 

153 


i54  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

The  lack  of  such  insight  accounts  for  the  curious 
inefficiency  of  so  many  philanthropic  efforts  and  for 
the  futility  of  so  many  eloquent  words.  For  under- 
standing cannot  be  acquired  simply  by  communica- 
tion. You  may  shout  the  truth  in  people's  ears, 
yet  they  will  not  believe  you.  The  great  weight  of 
custom  and  convention,  biased  by  individual  in- 
terests, and  well  furnished  with  all  sorts  of  sophisms 
and  subterfuges,  is  continually  opposed  to  it.  And 
only  very  slowly  and  by  repeated  efforts  can  you 
succeed  in  clearing  up  individual  minds  and  in  over- 
coming their  inertia. 

Few  things  in  my  life  have  caused  me  greater 
astonishment  than  the  obstinate  unwillingness  or 
incapacity  of  honest,  clear-minded  men  to  see  what 
seemed  to  me  so  perfectly  obvious,  and  to  do  what 
would  appear  so  very  natural,  simple  and  necessary. 

Yet  their  condition  of  mind  has  been  mine  also. 
I  know  by  my  own  experience  how  we  can  live  on 
in  that  sort  of  fool's  paradise,  accepting  a  comfort- 
able life  as  our  due  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  never 
once  dreaming  that  our  comfort  means  the  dis- 
comfort of  others,  never  giving  a  deeper  thought  to 
the  actual  methods  by  which  our  comforts  are 
secured.  We  take  the  existence  of  pauperism  and 
crime  and  degeneration  as  Unavoidable  evils  like 
earthquakes  or  cyclones,  and  the  division  into  rich 
and  poor  as  a  result  of  natural  causes,  beyond  the 
influence  of  human  power  —  a  thing  that  we  may 


CO-PRODUCTION  155 

alleviate  by  philanthropy,  but  never  by  any  chance, 
as  a  thing  that  can  be  abolished  by  wisdom  and 
justice. 

It  may  be  interesting,  therefore,  to  my  readers 
to  know  how  my  eyes  were  opened,  how  it  came  to 
me  that  the  division  of  mankind  into  rich  and  poor, 
with  all  its  subsequent  evils,  is  not  a  divine  and 
inevitable  institution,  but  the  result  of  human 
wickedness  and  foolishness,  of  bad  customs  and  bad 
organization,  and  that  not  only  the  poor,  but  espe- 
cially the  rich,  are  sorely  in  want  of  a  better  system. 

I  first  came  into  conflict  with  existing  customs 
because  of  my  original  personal  sentiment  about 
money.  I  wanted  to  have  the  good  things  of  life, 
as  any  other  healthy  boy  does,  but  I  did  not  want 
them  without  deserving  them,  unless  they  were 
given  to  me  out  of  love  and  good-will,  as  by  my 
parents  for  instance. 

But  then  I  learned  that  the  good  things  of  the 
earth  can  be  gotten  only  by  money,  and  the  natural 
conclusion  is  that  money  must  be  in  some  way  or 
other  an  equivalent  of  service  done.  The  world 
does  not  give  out  of  love  and  good-will;  so  any  money 
I  got  ought  to  represent  some  service  of  mine  ren- 
dered to  the  world.  This  was  my  natural  feeling, 
as  it  will  be  the  feeling  of  any  unspoiled,  unsophis- 
ticated, morally  healthy  human  being. 

I  found  I  had  two  ways  of  getting  money  — 
either  as  a  doctor  or  as  a  poet.  And  both  ways 


156  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

were  entirely  unsatisfactory  to  me;  they  clashed 
against  my  natural  feelings.  Helping  a  sick,  un- 
happy person  out  of  trouble  and  then  sending  him 
a  bill  never  failed  to  give  me  a  sense  of  shame  and 
humiliation.  It  was  to  me  like  saving  a  drowning 
child  and  then  holding  out  my  hand  for  a  dollar. 
We  must  not  call  this  sentimental  or  overscrupulous. 
It  is  quite  a  healthy,  natural  and  normal  feeling. 
Every  fair-minded,  honest  doctor  has  had  it.  He 
overcomes  it,  saying,  "One  has  to  live,"  the  mean- 
ing of  which  is  that  it  is  a  bad  system  of  retribution, 
but  that  we  have  to  accept  it  for  want  of  a  better. 

The  deep  fault  of  the  system  indicated  by  this 
feeling  of  humiliation  and  shame  is  that  we  measure 
out  deeds  of  love,  which  are  only  indirectly  produc- 
tive, by  dollars,  which  are  supposed  to  be  equiva- 
lents of  productive  labour.  The  doctor  is  a  very  use- 
ful member  of  society,  and  society  ought  to  remu- 
nerate him  largely,  but  it  is  absurd  and  shocking  to 
his  feelings  to  exact  this  remuneration  from  the  poor, 
suffering  individual  himself.  In  a  well-ordered 
society  the  sick  man  should  be  helped  by  the  whole 
community.  Certainly  the  invalid  himself,  losing 
his  productivity,  ought  not  to  be  the  one  to  pay,  in 
equivalents  of  productive  labour,  for  help  in  his 
misfortune.  This  is  the  logical,  natural  way,  and 
the  repulsion  felt  by  every  medical  man  in  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career  against  asking  his  patients  for 
money  is  the  logical,  natural,  human  feeling. 


CO-PRODUCTION  157 

The  same  can  be  said,  in  a  still  deeper  way,  about 
the  activity  of  the  poet  and  the  artist.  The  poet 
and  the  artist  are  eminently  useful  members  of 
society.  They  furnish  society  with  goods  of  in- 
comparable value.  So  they  should  be  rewarded 
amply,  and  their  desires  should  be  abundantly 
satisfied.  But  to  measure  out  their  contributions 
to  the  world  by  dollars,  the  equivalents  of  material 
production,  never  fails  to  arouse  in  the  finely  sen- 
tient, artistic  soul  a  feeling  of  humiliation,  shame 
and  disgust.  Of  course  they  have  to  overcome  it  — 
and  they  do,  alas ! — but  there  has  been  no  true  artist, 
just  as  there  has  been  no  good  doctor,  to  whom 
the  feeling  has  always  been  entirely  unknown. 

Multatuli  tells  us  that  he  was  once  accosted  by 
a  prostitute  in  the  street,  and  that  at  his  movement 
of  contempt  and  disgust  he  heard  a  voice  in  his 
heart  saying:  "Thou  art  worse  than  she  is,  for  she 
sells  her  body,  but  thou  sellest  thy  soul!" 

And  we  all  know  what  it  means  to  Art  itself,  if 
the  devotion  to  it  becomes  mixed,  as  it  has  to  be- 
come in  our  present  system,  with  the  greed  for 
money.  How  few  are  the  artists,  even  among  the 
greatest,  who  keep  their  art  and  their  souls  free  from 
the  pernicious  influence  of  mercantilism!  When 
society  is  in  a  state  of  confusion  the  best  thing 
we  can  do  is  to  cling  tenaciously  and  patiently  to 
what  we  feel  to  be  our  inmost  sense  of  right  and 
wrong. 


158  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Of  course  I  had  to  give  in  to  some  extent,  prac- 
tically, in  order  to  live.  I  got  money  for  my  books, 
and  I  got  money  for  my  consultations.  But  I 
never  did  it  without  inward  protest  and  without 
trying  to  escape  from  what  seemed  to  me  a  constant 
insult  to  my  finer  feelings.  The  only  way  to  avoid 
it  was  to  be  rich,  and  to  write  and  help  out  of  sheer 
love,  without  taking  money. 

I  was  not  rich,  but  I  had  relatives  who  were  well- 
to-do,  and  they  contributed  an  annual  sum  to  my 
household.  In  this  way  it  seemed  as  if  I  were 
approaching  the  ideal  way  of  serving  mankind. 
There,  however,  another  difficulty  came  in:  We 
all  know  the  feeling  of  delicacy  when  it  comes  to 
accepting  somebody  else's  gifts.  We  have  no  ob- 
jection to  being  rich,  but  we  object  to  taking  money 
from  another  man  so  long  as  we  can  help  ourselves. 
What  does  this  feeling  of  delicacy  mean?  It  means 
that  we  consider  the  money  we  get  the  equivalent 
of  somebody  else's  work,  and  we  don't  want  to  live 
on  that  so  long  as  we  are  able  ourselves.  Every 
man  who  is  not  corrupt  and  depraved  has  that 
feeling  of  honour.  Being  pensioned  by  another 
individual,  however  good  a  friend  or  near  a  relative, 
hurts  our  pride,  jars  against  our  feelings  of  honour. 
Our  ethical  instinct,  so  to  speak,  makes  a  just  and 
nice  distinction.  No  doctor  and  no  artist  would 
make  an  objection  to  being  remunerated  by  any 
board  or  committee  representing  Society  as  a  whole. 


CO-PRODUCTION  159 

He  would  feel  justified  in  taking  his  livelihood  from 
society,  because  he  knows  he  serves  society.  But 
living  by  the  favour  of  any  individual  man  humiliates 
him.  It  is  like  taking  alms,  like  living  by  charity. 
Why?  Because  he  cannot  feel  that  any  individual 
man,  who  is  not  commissioned  by  the  community, 
has  the  right  to  dispose  of  the  common  property. 

This  was  my  feeling,  and  I  believe  Americans 
will  understand  it  as  a  true  democratic  feeling. 

After  this  my  thoughts  went  deeper.  I  began 
to  reflect  on  the  power  given  to  my  relatives,  who 
were  able  and  willing  to  help  me,  and  whose  help 
I  could  not  feel  otherwise  than  humiliating.  Society 
seemed  to  be  paying  them,  though  they  were  not 
more  useful  servants  than  I  was.  They  could  pay 
me  out  of  their  own  abundance.  Would  it  make 
much  difference  if  I  were  rich  myself?  Some  day 
the  wealth  of  these  people  would  come  to  me,  by 
legal  means.  Would  then  my  scruples  all  be  dis- 
carded? Who  would  be  paying  my  annual  income, 
if  their  money  became  mine?  Was  it  society,  or 
any  just  representative  of  society? 

By  no  means.  I  would  be  rich  and  remain  rich, 
not  using  up  my  wealth  at  all,  but  getting  more 
wealth,  more  comfort,  for  the  only  reason  that  I 
had  wealth  already.  The  only  difference  would 
be  that  the  money  would  not  come  from  any  in- 
dividual I  know,  but  in  an  obscure  way,  through  the 
medium  of  bankers  or  of  brokers  from  absolutely 


160  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

unknown  sources.  Would  this  be  less  humiliating, 
less  shameful,  even  supposing  that  these  unknown 
sources  were  clean? 

Surely  not.  And  if  we  do  not  feel  it  so,  it  is  only 
because  our  sense  of  honour  and  shame  has  been 
generally  stunned  by  the  immense  universality  of 
the  custom,  by  the  obscure  and  complicated  way  in 
which  the  money  —  the  equivalent  of  somebody 
else's  productive  labour  —  comes  to  us. 

I  went  on  investigating.  And  soon  it  became 
clear  to  me  that  the  sources  were  not  clean  at  all. 
The  money,  got  by  wealth  alone,  was  surely  not  the 
sort  of  remuneration  that  my  conscience  as  a  doctor 
or  an  artist,  as  a  servant  of  the  community,  would 
willingly  accept.  It  was  not  at  all  a  just  tribute  paid 
for  my  services  by  an  appreciative  community.  It 
was  got  by  practices  which  I  could  not  define  other- 
wise than  as  low  and  deceitful,  from  people  who  were 
for  the  most  part  poorer  than  I,  and  who  were  surely 
not  appreciative  of  my  value  as  a  public  servant, 
as  an  artist,  or  as  a  man  of  science.  And  worst  of 
all,  this  way  of  being  paid  could  be  practised  by  any 
dunce,  any  rascal,  by  the  most  dangerous  enemies 
of  the  community. 

Could  any  form  of  remuneration  be  more  humili- 
ating, more  shameful,  more  unworthy?  I  could  not 
see  it  then  and  I  cannot  see  it  now.  However  un- 
usual and  eccentric  it  may  sound  to  the  average 
unreflective  mind,  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  more 


CO-PRODUCTION  161 

honourable  to  live  on  the  interest  of  a  large  capital 
than  to  live  by  alms,  by  running  a  gambling  house, 
a  saloon,  or  a  brothel.  The  mischief  in  the  latter 
cases  is  more  obvious,  that's  all. 

This  will  be  called  a  very  hard  verdict,  but  I  beg 
the  gentle  reader  to  observe  that  it  is  less  hard  to 
him  who  probably  does  not  believe  it  than  to  the 
present  writer,  who  is  convinced  of  its  truth  and  yet 
cannot  escape  it  any  better  than  the  reader. 

The  usual  method  by  which  the  generous  and  fair- 
minded  physician  tries  to  escape  the  dilemma  is 
by  taxing  the  wealthy  very  highly  and  by  treating 
the  poor  gratuitously  by  forcing,  so  to  speak,  the 
well-to-do  to  help  the  less  fortunate.  This  amounts 
to  the  method  of  Karl  Moor  in  Schiller's  "Brig- 
ands," who  robbed  the  rich  in  order  to  give  freely 
to  the  poor.  It  may  be  pardonable  in  times  of 
general  disorder  and  confusion;  it  is  none  the  less 
unlawful  and  barbarous. 

Such  difficulty,  such  scruples  were  the  deepest  and 
most  poweful  motives  for  the  change  of  life  of  which 
I  have  told  in  a  previous  chapter.  I  agree  that  I  was 
guilty  of  pride,  but  a  pride  I  deem  legitimate  —  the 
difference  between  me  and  other  people  being  only 
this,  that  I,  with  inborn  obstinacy,  did  not  allow 
my  pride  to  bend  before  the  almost  universal  pres- 
sure of  custom  and  convention. 

I  tried  then,  as  the  reader  knows,  to  contribute  my 
personal  share  to  the  production  of  material  wealth. 


162  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

I  reduced  my  expenses  to  a  minimum,  and  took  part 
in  all  sorts  of  productive  labour.  I  plowed  and  dug, 
planted  cabbage  and  potatoes,  tried  to  be  useful  as 
a  market  gardener,  a  beekeeper,  a  baker,  a  mer- 
chant, and  a  storekeeper.  My  former  clients  and  the 
readers  of  my  writings  shook  their  heads  and  deplored 
what  they  not  unjustly  considered  as  a  sad  waste 
of  my  time  and  talents.  It  was  a  waste,  surely. 
But  I  got  something  in  return :  I  got  insight  and  ex- 
perience. I  learned  the  complication  of  modern 
production,  the  need  of  high  efficiency,  the  immense 
importance  of  good  management,  the  value  of  the 
organizing  mind. 

I  had  to  give  in,  at  the  end,  forced  by  misfortune. 
I  had  failed  in  my  attempt  to  form  a  self-supporting 
community,  prosperous  enough  to  give  to  the  artist 
or  the  man  of  science  living  in  its  midst  a  life  free 
from  material  care.  But  my  conviction  that  such 
a  community  of  honest  and  fair-minded  workers  was 
possible,  and  that  it  was  the  only  real  solution  of  the 
problem  —  this  conviction  was  strengthened  to  the 
utmost  certitude. 

And  so  I  once  more  accepted  the  humiliation  of 
selling  my  writings,  and  making  a  merchandise  of 
my  art;  but  I  resolved  at  the  same  time  to  devote 
all  the  energy  and  strength  I  could  spare  to  the  fur- 
therance of  that  community  which  is  sure  to  come 
and  which  will  enable  us  all  to  live  in  material  com- 
fort without  shame,  without  taking  alms  from  the 


CO-PRODUCTION  163 

powerful,  and  without  taking  part  in  obscure  de- 
vices of  problematic  honesty. 

I  know  what  remarks  will  be  made  and  I  will 
meet  them  in  advance.  Some  will  say:  "This  is 
socialism!"  But  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  that 
remark.  Call  it  what  you  like,  is  it  therefore  less 
true,  less  real,  less  obvious?  I  am  no  doctrinarian, 
I  hold  no  special  creed  or  dogma.  I  know  that  this 
pride  of  mine,  which  forbids  me  as  an  able,  healthy 
man  to  live  by  the  grace  of  others,  to  live  on  alms, 
on  gambling,  investing,  or  on  the  fruit  of  other  more 
or  less  dishonourable  practices  —  this  pride  is  the 
normal  feeling  of  every  morally  healthy  man.  And 
women,  though  they  are  accustomed  through  the 
course  of  centuries  to  live  in  dependence  on  the 
work  of  husbands  and  fathers,  have  the  same  pride, 
as  is  shown  clearly  in  our  days  wherever  women 
become  economically  independent. 

Another  remark  will  be,  that  I  want  the  state  to 
pay  doctors  and  artists.  But  this  is  a  mistake. 
Certainly  the  position  of  professors  and  artists 
salaried  by  the  Government  is  an  easy  and  gratify- 
ing one.  But  except  in  the  matter  of  education  it 
cannot  be  a  general  solution  of  the  problem,  prin- 
cipally because  the  present  governments  are  not 
representative  of  true  commonwealths.  In  a  true 
commonwealth  it  would  not  be  possible  for  an  able 
man  either  to  live  luxuriously  without  labour,  or  to 
live  on  alms  for  want  of  work  or  of  payment.  No 


164  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

artist,  no  man  of  science  who  had  given  proof  of  his 
ability,  would  be  left  to  the  necessity  of  bartering 
and  bargaining  with  his  art  or  his  science  in  order 
to  get  a  living. 

Let  us  consider  now  whether  this  plan  of  mine,  this 
cooperative,  or,  rather,  co-productive,  company  which 
is  being  started  in  North  Carolina,  is  really  a  better 
form  of  organization  and  whether  it  may  not,  if  well 
managed  and  if  favoured  by  happy  circumstances, 
even  be  a  germ  of  a  better  social  system.  May  it 
not  either  become  a  tiny  model  of  other  similar  and 
greater  structures,  or  develop  itself  into  a  full-grown 
and  powerful  body,  a  state  within  a  state,  or,  rather, 
a  true  commonwealth  within  a  state? 

Suppose  we  succeed  in  attracting  to  the  initial 
group,  to  the  nucleus  of  the  company,  a  fine  set  of 
first-rate  producers  —  experts  in  intensive  agri- 
culture —  and  in  making  these  people  see  the  ad- 
vantage of  having  all  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity buy  together  and  sell  together,  and  become 
joint  owners  of  all  the  stock,  including  the  real  estate, 
instead  of  serving  as  tenant  to  a  private  landlord. 
According  to  our  experience  so  far,  this  seems  not 
at  all  too  optimistic  a  supposition. 

Then  after  the  first  few  difficult  years,  the  pre- 
ferred stock  will  be  paid  back  to  the  original  inves- 
tors, or  used  for  further  extension.  The  dividends 
will  enrich  all  the  producers,  increase  their  wants, 
and  at  the  same  time  increase  their  output  and  their 


CO-PRODUCTION  165 

profits.  Small  industries,  dairy  factories,  canning 
factories,  will  be  established  to  work  the  products 
and  sell  them  more  profitably.  Every  producer  will 
then  be  interested  in  the  prosperity  of  his  neighbours, 
and  instead  of  keeping  his  methods  a  private  secret, 
he  will  communicate  them  freely  to  the  others.  En- 
terprises of  common  interest,  a  bank,  bakeries,  and 
shops  will  be  established.  Every  newcomer  will  also 
be  a  consumer,  and  will  enlarge  the  market. 

No  money  will  be  wasted  in  rent,  in  interest,  in 
undue  profits  to  middlemen.  No  slackening  of  effort 
or  efficiency  will  be  tolerated  by  the  others.  Every 
department  will  have  to  be  under  the  direction  of  a 
manager,  responsible  to  the  general  board,  which  in 
turn  will  be  under  the  control  of  the  members.  The 
waste  in  advertisement  will  be  gradually  reduced,  the 
producers  being  also  consumers,  and  the  quality  of  the 
products  under  their  control.  Unemployment  will 
be  done  away  with,  as  the  production  will  be  directed 
to  articles  of  general  use  which  have  a  fixed  market, 
and  the  unskilled  labour  will  be  kept  busy,  shifting 
from  one  thing  to  another  according  to  the  season- 
work.  The  invalids  within  the  community  will  be 
provided  for  and  no  able  man  will  be  allowed  to 
starve  in  enforced  idleness. 

Then,  when  the  system  beings  to  work  to  its  full 
extent,  we  shall  see  the  leaks  stopped,  and  such  an 
annual  increase  of  profits  as  has  never  been  possible 
in  any  other  concern.  There  will  be  an  annual  sur- 


166  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

plus  growing  so  fast  as  to  become  actually  alarming. 
Why?  For  this  simple  reason  that,  in  a  group  of 
men  producing  in  common  from  a  common  source  of 
wealth,  their  productive  power  increases  at  a  faster  rate 
than  their  number.  This  is  a  fact  that  no  economist 
denies.* 

But  the  tremendous  significance  of  the  fact  is 
realized  by  few.  It  will  be  understood  only  when 
the  theory  has  been  put  into  practice. 

Man,  under  proper  conditions,  produces  more  than 
he  consumes,  and  this  surplus  increases  with  the  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  those  with  whom  he  cooperates. 

Whenever,  with  intelligence  and  sagacity,  with 
firmness  of  moral  principle,  this  great  truth  is  put 
into  practice,  men  will  attain  to  a  condition  in  which 
it  shall  be  more  blessed  for  every  one  to  give  than  to 
receive,  because  every  one  will  have  enough.  We 
shall  then  be  as  guiltless  of  greedy  grasping  in  social 
life  as  we  now  are  when  we  sit  at  the  table  of  a  pros- 
perous, well-bred  family.  The  steadily  increasing  af- 
fluence and  the  moral  pressure  of  the  members  will 
compel  the  authorities  of  such  a  company  to  perform 
acts  that  would  seem  to  us  to-day  magnanimous  to 
an  unheard  of  and  inconceivable  degree.  Even 
now  instances  may  be  seen  in  which  great  prosperity 
and  an  elevation  of  the  general  ethical  tone  have 
led  to  the  performance  of  such  acts.  How  much 
more  imposing  they  will  be  when  the  property  is 

"Exhaustion  of  the  sources  of  wealth  is  left  out  of  account,  as  we  are  practically  too  far 
from  it  as  yet. 


CO-PRODUCTION  167 

really  collective  —  common  wealth,  in  the  full  sense 
—  and  when  the  general  morality  is  purified  of  the 
fearful  corruption  and  unreality  with  which  it  is 
now  infected. 

We  have  been  frightened,  especially  by  the  dog- 
matic socialistic  party,  with  the  remark  that  such 
a  small  group  can  never  compete  with  the  big  monop- 
olies. We  shall  be  fought  down,  they  say,  crushed 
in  an  instant  by  the  tremendous  power  of  the  big, 
parasitical  bodies. 

But  the  concentration  of  capital  in  a  parasiti- 
cally  organized  group  is  merely  apparent.  The 
accumulated  wealth  comes  into  the  hands  of  indi- 
viduals and  is  in  a  short  time  dispersed  again.  The 
essential  and  permanent  characteristic  of  the  great 
industrial  and  commerical  bodies  is  not  the  wealth 
that  can  be  measured  in  gold,  in  real  estate,  in 
goods,  but  the  knowledge  accumulated  in  the  heads 
of  managers  and  workmen,  the  experience  and  the 
organization.  It  is  Andrew  Carnegie  himself  who 
has  emphasized  this  fact.  If  a  higher  moral  prin- 
ciple can  be  added  to  this,  the  whole  structure  is 
invincible;  if  not,  it  may  fall  to  pieces  in  a  twinkling, 
with  all  its  power  and  wealth. 

In  no  single  respect,  then,  does  the  honest  pro- 
ducer stand  actually  powerless  in  face  of  the  para- 
sitic groups.  Their  gold  and  silver  and  banknotes  he 
does  not  need,  their  tools  and  factories  he  can  make, 
he  wants  nothing  but  a  certain  amount  of  fertile 


i68  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

soil,  courage,  cooperation,  and  an  organizing  leader- 
ship. But  his  energy  must  be  directed  toward 
production,  production  of  his  own  necessities,  so  that 
he  may  become  independent  and  self-supporting  in 
the  shortest  time. 

What  could  happen  to  a  group  of  co-producers, 
living  on  their  own  lands,  having  their  own  mines, 
producing  their  own  food  and  clothes,  building 
their  'own  houses  —  what  could  crush  them  ? 
Who  could  attack  them?  They  would  be  invin- 
cible, inviolable,  in  the  midst  of  a  hundred  hostile 
trusts. 

Well-organized  production  of  the  first  necessities 
of  life,  from  common  sources  —  this  is  to  be  the 
basis  of  our  company;  it  is  the  only  basis  of  a  true 
commonwealth.  This  and  this  alone  will  give  it 
unconquerable  strength,  however  small  its  origin. 
This  is  the  only  untarnishable  source  of  real  power. 
He  who  controls  the  production  of  the  necessities 
of  life  controls  the  world.  The  lack  of  this  prin- 
ciple is  the  weakness  of  all  other  schemes  for  social 
reform.  Social  legislation,  single  tax,  agricultural 
education,  credit  banks,  distributive  cooperation, 
consumers'  leagues,  back-to-the-land  movements  - 
they  may  all  help,  but  they  are  all  palliative,  begin- 
ning somewhere  in  the  middle  or  at  the  top.  The 
real  basis  of  the  social  structure  is  production  of 
life's  necessities.  We  are  all  dependent  on  these, 
artist  and  scientist  and  banker  alike,  and  until  their 


CO-PRODUCTION  169 

production  is  well  organized,  all  social  reform  will 
only  alleviate  and  never  cure  the  social  diseases. 

The  accumulation  of  capital  in  an  anti-parasitic, 
co-productive  federation  must,  other  conditions 
being  equal,  proceed  far  more  rapidly  than  such 
accumulation  in  a  parasitic  system.  Where  all  ele- 
ments work  together  and  nothing  is  wasted,  where 
no  idlers  and  drones  are  tolerated  to  weaken  the 
course  of  industry,  where  producer  is  at  the  same 
time  consumer  in  one  and  the  same  federative  body, 
the  surplus  of  production  must  increase  at  an  in- 
comparably more  rapid  rate. 

Though  the  parasitic  groups  have  now,  appar- 
ently, a  tremendous  handicap,  once  the  pure  anti- 
parasitic  federation  arises,  they  will  be  overtaken 
in  an  astonishingly  short  time.  They  will  be  out- 
run, just  as  in  a  plantation  the  trees  of  slower  growth, 
however  big,  give  place  to  those  that  grow  more 
quickly.  As  soon  as  there  grows  up  in  America, 
where  the  conditions  are  most  favourable,  an  organi- 
zation of  workers  who  will  produce  for  each  other; 
shut  out  inefficiency,  idleness,  and  parasitism;  re- 
tain the  surplus,  interest  and  profits,  as  well  as  the 
land  and  mines  and  factories,  as  collective  prop- 
erty —  this  organization,  if  well  managed,  will  at- 
tain in  a  few  decades  to  a  power  and  wealth  that 
will  far  exceed  anything  that  we  have  hitherto  seen, 
even  in  America.  It  will  eclipse  Standard  Oil,  which 
thrives  on  one  not  even  indispensable  article  and 


170  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

which  can  at  any  moment  be  killed  by  a  new  in- 
vention; it  will  eclipse  financial  coalitions  which  live 
by  clever  plotting,  and  waste  far  more  than  they 
even  indirectly  produce.  The  benevolent  acts  of  mil- 
lionaires that  are  now  reputed  princely  will  be 
child's  play  in  comparison  with  the  gigantic  and 
fabulous  acts  of  general  utility  and  ethical  enlighten- 
ment that  such  a  federation  will  put  into  execution. 
Enterprises  from  which  poweful  states  now  shrink 
will  be  taken  up  by  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  There 
will  not  be  a  scientific  enterprise  for  which  it  shall 
not  furnish  all  the  means,  not  a  need  in  the  world 
that  it  shall  not  alleviate  of  its  own  free  motion. 
Libraries,  schools,  academies  it  will  establish  and 
maintain,  even  far  beyond  the  borders  of  its  terri- 
tory. Having  no  selfish  aims  in  view  and  having  to 
dispose  every  year  of  a  constantly  growing  surplus, 
it  will  cause  valuable  works  to  be  executed  by  for- 
eign peoples.  No  politcal  king  and  no  money  king 
shall  be  able  to  emulate  its  immense  economical 
power.  No  war  shall  be  carried  on  without  its 
assistance  or  consent.  No  strike  will  be  possible 
anywhere  in  the  world  without  its  powerful  support. 
Simply  by  its  unlimited  wealth  it  will  hold  the 
balance  of  peace  and  war  as  well  in  the  political  as 
in  the  economical  domain.  The  honour  and  priv- 
ilege of  belonging  to  such  a  commonwealth  will 
be  greater  than  that  of  any  citizenship  in  the  world. 
All  this  is  irrefutable  in  theory.  To  prove  its 


CO-PRODUCTION  171 

practical  possibility  by  tenaciously  repeated  ex- 
periments I  consider  the  foremost  duty  of  those 
who  have  the  necessary  talents  and  oppor- 
tunity. 

The  first  result  of  common  prosperity  in  the 
small  initial  group  will  be  that  country  life  will  be 
made  attractive.  The  co-producers  will  begin  to 
make  their  farms  and  homes  pleasant  to  look  at 
and  comfortable.  They  will  improve  the  means  of 
communication,  and  so  take  away  the  sense  of  lone- 
liness, of  backwardness  that  now  drives  so  many 
young  people  from  the  farms  to  the  cities.  The 
garden  city  will  grow  up,  not  as  an  artificial  scheme 
planned  by  the  philanthropic  effort  of  rich  people, 
but  as  a  natural  outcome  of  common  wealth  and 
common  wants. 

The  only  way  of  bringing  the  producer  "back 
to  the  land"  is  to  make  the  land  attractive  and  a 
centre  of  civilization.  All  other  methods  are  artificial 
and  will  fail.  The  surplus  of  the  farmer's  labour 
now  flows  to  the  cities  and  draws  the  young  farmer 
after  it.  Keep  that  surplus  on  the  land  and  the 
farmer  will  stay  there  too. 

Another  remark  that  I  often  hear  is  that  "man- 
kind is  not  yet  ripe"  for  this  sort  of  co-production. 
Men  are  not  yet  good  enough;  they  want  moral 
education  first.  In  answer  to  this  I  may  remark 
that  moral  education  is  impossible  so  long  as  chil- 
dren grow  up  in  a  wrong  system  of  production.  It 


172  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

is  not  only  by  books  and  teachers  that  children  are 
educated,  but  by  facts  and  deeds  which  they  daily 
see  around  them.  All  children  in  our  present  town- 
life,  in  surroundings  of  modern  society,  are  educated 
on  false  principles.  They  learn  to  respect  the  idle 
rich,  and  to  see  in  them  models  to  emulate.  They 
are  brought  up  with  the  idea  of  getting  rich  as  soon 
as  possible,  no  matter  how,  and  to  be  able  to  let 
other  people  do  the  work.  They  learn  to  accept 
charity  from  powerful  individuals,  and  to  admire 
their  benevolent  acts  as  glorious  deeds.  They  are 
educated  to  give  up  the  best  pride  of  the  honour- 
able man,  the  pride  that  makes  him  refuse  any 
profit  that  he  did  not  earn  fairly  by  his  service 
to  .society.  What  are  class-books  and  Bibles  in 
the  face  of  this  enormously  suggestive  education  in 
evil? 

According  to  my  experience  men  are  sufficiently 
ripe  —  rather  overripe.  They  want  education  by 
practice,  by  a  better  method  of  production.  Their 
defects  are  the  defects  of  the  uneducated,  of  chil- 
dren —  that  is,  greed  and  short-sightedness. 

They  all  would  be  better  off,  rich  and  poor  alike, 
if  they  produced  fairly  together,  and  did  not  try 
wildly  to  run  down  their  rivals. 

Short-sightedness  is  the  only  great  danger  we  have 
to  guard  against  in  our  co-productive  enterprise. 
The  one  criticism  of  our  plan  which  I  consider  not 
unfounded  is  that  some  day  the  members  of  the 


CO-PRODUCTION  173 

group,  out  of  short-sighted  greed,  will  stop  exten- 
sion, buy  up  the  preferred  stock  and  become  a  closed 
company.  This  is  a  possibility  against  which  we 
have  to  take  careful  measures.  First  of  all,  the 
moral  trend  of  the  company  must  be  well  laid  down 
in1  the*  rules  and  openly  discussed.  The  public, 
who  can  do  much  in  the  beginning  for  the  support 
of  the  plan,  simply  by  becoming  customers  and  con- 
sumers of  our  products,  must  know  what  we  are 
aiming  at,  and  be  able  to  withhold  their  support 
when  the  rules  are  violated  or  changed  in  essential 
points. 

And  then,  no  experiment  is  without  dangers,  no 
success  was  ever  attained  without  a  certain  amount 
of  optimistic  belief.  I,  for  one,  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  adding  a  few  more  drops  of  morality 
to  business,  and  of  not  spoiling  but  improving  it 
thereby. 

From  the  high  and  wide  viewpoint  of  biological 
science  the  great  change  that  I  have  indicated  as 
taking  place  in  the  human  race  is  obvious  and  un- 
mistakable. The  numerous  small  quarrelling,  fight- 
ing, and  robbing  groups  are  gradually  melting  into 
one  big  tightly  interwoven  mass,  united  by  com- 
merce and  swift  communication.  At  the  same 
time,  the  standards  of  reciprocal  violence,  extortion, 
and  deceit  are  slowly  but  surely  changing  into  those 
of  mutual  understanding,  fair  dealing,  and  honest 
exchange. 


i74  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Science  and  knowledge  are  now  binding  all  human- 
kind together  by  invincible  power,  the  advantages 
of  mutual  aid  and  equity  are  becoming  daily  more 
manifest.  The  tremendous  transition  from  politi- 
cal state  to  commonwealth  goes  on,  steadily  and 
irresistibly,  like  a  great  stream  obeying  gravitation. 
For  this  transition  obeys  the  strongest  impulse  of  the 
race  —  self-preservation. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  change  is  entirely 
unconscious  and  instinctive.  It  is  true  that  millions 
of  units,  the  majority  of  mankind,  act  their  part  in 
the  great  performance  without  knowing  what  is 
going  on,  or  to  what  end  they  live.  But  man  is  an 
animal  that  is  bound  to  think  and  reflect,  and  he 
will  act  on  conscious  reflection.  He  may  be  under 
all  sorts  of  delusions,  but  he  will  never  give  up  try- 
ing to  get  away  from  them.  And  so  the  great  change 
that  I  mean  will  come  about  by  conscious  voluntary 
effort,  by  the  intelligent  direction  of  the  great  in- 
born impulses  of  the  mass. 

This  is  what  we  have  to  try.  And  we  have  to 
repeat  our  endeavours  and  our  experiments  in- 
cessantly, tenaciously,  undaunted  by  manifold  fail- 
ures. For  the  scientific  mind  finds  as  much  instruc- 
tion in  failure  as  in  success.  And  what  amount  of 
failure,  of  trouble  and  expense  can  be  too  high  a  price 
for  this  greatest  of  all  human  achievements,  a  great 
commonwealth,  covering  the  whole  planet,  held  to- 
gether by  laws  of  morality  and  justice  and  good-will, 


CO-PRODUCTION  175 

based  on  science,  on  wisdom,  and  on  the  right  per- 
ception of  the  unchangeable,  the  true,  the  everlast- 
ing, the  Divine? 

The  full  triumph  may  seem  unattainable,  but  I 
think  we  can  wish  for  no  better  aim  in  life  than  to 
have  fought  for  it. 


CHAPTER  III 


WHAT    I    SAID    TO    THE    AMERICAN    PEOPLE 

DDRESSING  an  audience  in  Carnegie  Hall, 
New  York,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1908,  I 
spoke  as  follows: 

I  hope  you  have  not  come  here  to  amuse  yourselves  or  to 
admire  a  fine  display  of  brilliant  eloquence. 

For  I  am  not  likely  to  satisfy  you  therein.  It  may  even  be 
that  I  shock  you  by  saying  unpleasant  things  in  a  foreign  sort 
of  English. 

But  I  have  come  because  I  have  something  very  serious  to 
tell  you  which  lies  as  a  burden  on  my  soul,  and  Emerson  has 
said  that  when  a  man  feels  the  burden  of  truth  in  his  soul  that 
truth  will  become  eloquent  by  itself,  though  the  man  may 
stutter  and  stammer. 

I  confess  that  I,  for  one,  believe  that  when  a  man  is  on  a 
great  errand  there  is  a  "guidance"  for  him  showing  him  the 
things  he  has  to  take  note  of.  I  shall  tell  you  how  I  felt  that 
"guidance"  on  this  visit  to  America. 

I  came  here  on  board  the  greatest  and  fastest  ship  known, 
travelling  first  class.  We  were  a  very  "swell"  party  indeed  and 
had  a  good  time,  with  eating  and  drinking  and  musical  enter- 
tainment unless  a  big  Atlantic  swell  put  us  off  our  feet. 

And  I  had  a  little  chat  with  one  of  the  ship's  officers  and  he 
told  me  that  we  should  go  still  faster  if  the  men  down  below 
were  not  such  a  bad  lot.  The  men  down  below  were  300  firemen, 
working  deep  under  in  the  bellows  of  the  gigantic  steamer. 

176 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  177 

Imagining  what  it  meant  to  stand  day  and  night  before  huge 
fires  under  the  cold  draught,  I  asked,  "Well,  I  hope,  when  we  have 
arrived,  these  people  will  have  something  of  a  good  time  also." 

"To  be  sure  they  will,"  said  the  man;  "they  will  be  drunk  in 
no  time."  And  while  we  were  eating  and  drinking  and  hear- 
ing music  in  our  splendid  first-class  dining-room  I  thought  of 
those  300  men  below. 

Now  the  Mauretania  is  an  English  ship  and  belongs  to  the 
Old  World,  and  I  was  going  to  a  New  World.  And  among  the 
swells  on  board  was  pointed  out  to  me  the  biggest  swell  of  all, 
a  very  tremendous  swell  indeed.  This  was  a  New  World  swell, 
and  they  called  him  a  Steel  King.  Now  it  had  struck  me  that 
people  in  the  Old  World  used  to  have  only  one  King  at  a  time, 
but  America  seems  to  entertain  a  whole  crowd  of  them:  Steel 
Kings,  Oil  Kings,  Sugar  Kings,  Railway  Kings,  ever  so  many. 
We  know  that  America  .wants  everything  on  a  large  scale.  Well, 
this  King  looked  very  humorous  and  amiable;  he  made  a  little 
speech  about  money  and  munificence;  they  all  sang  out  that  he 
was  a  jolly  good  fellow.  I  hope  he  is. 

Then  just  before  we  entered  the  Bay  of  New  York  I  took  up 
a  book  in  the  beautiful  library,  a  book  on  New  World  philosophy, 
by  Prof.  William  James,  and  there  I  came  across  a  foreign  item 
quoted  from  a  newspaper: 

"A  young  workman  from  New  York,  having  sought  for  em- 
ployment in  vain,  week  after  week,  and  unable  to  bear  the 
sight  of  his]  starving  wife  and  children,  killed  himself  by  drink- 
ing carbolic  acid." 

At  that  very  moment,  that  very  moment,  the  great  ship 
swung  around  into  New  York  Harbour  and  we  saw  the  metrop- 
olis of  the  New  World,  and  to  the  left  the  majestic  Statue  of 
Liberty  illumining  the  world.  This  was  my  "guidance,"  people 
of  America.  The  beautiful,  imposing  statue  seemed  to  me  a 
horrible,  cruel  mockery.  Do  you  know  what  its  lofty  gesture 
seemed  to  signify? 

"Do  you  look  for  liberty  and  justice?  Well,  then,  seek  for 
it  in  Heaven;  don't  expect  to  find  it  here."  That  is  what  the 
uplifted  hand  said  to  me. 


178  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Killed  himself  by  carbolic  acid  because  he  wanted  to  work  and 
could  not  and  was  unable  to  bear  the  sight  of  his  starving  family, 
and  I  am  told  this  is  one  case  out  of  many.  Now  I  want  to  ask 
you  one  question,  people  of  America.  How  is  it  that,  when 
some  poor  slave  on  the  coast  of  Africa  is  flogged  to  death,  you 
all  cry  out  for  shame,  and  when  one  man  is  condemned  unjustly 
for  high  treason  the  whole  civilized  world  is  in  uproar  —  but 
when  an  honest  workman  in  the  richest  country  of  the  world, 
in  a  democratic  commonwealth,  feels  himself  compelled  to 
drink  carbolic  acid  simply  because  he  wants  to  do  his  duty  — 
you  all  shrug  your  shoulders  and  say,  "What  shall  we  do?" 

He  was  but  one  sufferer  out  of  many,  but  imagine  his  agony, 
his  mental  and  moral  tortures,  that  he  preferred  this  horrible 
death.  I  declare  to  you  the  vision  of  that  one  man  pouring 
the  burning  liquid  down  his  throat  to  escape  the  sight  of  his 
starving  children  is  haunting  me  day  and  night.  And  I  say 
it  ought  to  haunt  you,  members  of  the  same  community  — 
which  you  call  a  commonwealth  —  you  and  all  your  magis- 
trates, your  statesmen,  and  your  kings.  It  ought  to  haunt 
you  more  than  does  the  vision  of  the  poor  negro  slaves  in  Africa. 
These  are  not  members,  workers,  of  your  boasted  common- 
wealth. 

Common  wealth  indeed!  I  tell  you,  so  long  as  you  are  not 
able  to  prevent  horrible  iniquities  like  these  going  on  in  the 
midst  of  you,  you  had  better  speak  of  common  misery.  And 
so  long  as  there  is  one  honest,  capable  worker  in  your  midst, 
driven  to  despair  because  he  cannot  find  even  the  liberty  to 
do  the  first  duty  of  every  citizen  —  that  is,  to  work  —  then  you 
had  better  be  silent  about  Liberty.  You  had  better  make  a 
large  wooden  case  of  blackboards  and  put  that  over  your 
Goddess  of  Liberty  and  paint  on  it  in  big  while  letters:  LIB- 
ERTY IN  REPAIR. 

Now  once  more  I  ask  you,  how  is  it  that  a  book  of  fiction 
written  some  fifty  years  ago  by  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  about  the 
misery  of  a  negro  slave  set  your  whole  nation  aflame  and  made 
you  fight  a  long  and  bloody  war  to  abolish  slavery,  while  this 
far  more  terrible  and  unjust  slavery,  bringing  with  it  unheard  of 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  179 

sufferings,  going  on  in  your  very  midst,  is  met,  if  not  with 
indifference,  with  a  hopeless,  helpless  passivity?  Where  is  the 
Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  of  to-day  and  her  novel  about  The  Man 
Who  Drank  the  Carbolic  Acid?  Are  your  hearts  hardened  to 
such  horrors?  No.  For  sure  you  are  as  kind-hearted,  as 
sensitive  to  misery,  to  iniquity,  to  injustice  as  your  fathers 
were  half  a  century  ago.  Only  —  you  do  not  know!  You 
do  not  know  what  to  do,  how  to  help,  where  to  begin.  It  is 
knowledge  you  lack,  not  sentiment. 

I  am  not  a  sentimentalist;  I  know  how  to  suffer  and  to  sub- 
mit to  unavoidable  suffering  in  the  world.  But  I  tell  you  this 
suffering  is  not  unavoidable.  There  is  a  remedy;  there  must 
be  a  remedy;  it  would  be  an  eternal  shame  to  mankind  if, 
having  achieved  so  many  wonders  of  science  and  intelligence, 
it  could  not  find  a  way  out  of  these  horrors.  There  is  enough 
feeling  of  justice,  enough  good-will,  enough  power  —  enough 
and  to  spare.  It  is  intelligence  that  we  lack;  understanding  in 
the  first  place,  and  then  patient  endeavour  and  unwavering 
faith. 

Now  the  fact  is  that  you  pretend  to  have  established  a  great 
commonwealth,  but  you  have  thus  far  done  nothing  of  the  sort. 
You  have  political  states,  you  have  a  certain  order,  you  have  a 
government,  you  have  private  business  concerns,  but  you  have 
no  commonwealth.  Private  wealth  you  have,  and  too  much 
of  it,  but  no  common  wealth.  You  know  how  to  gain  money, 
but  you  do  not  know  how  to  distribute  it,  nor  how  to  spend  it. 
You  are  wasting  it  for  the  most  part. 

Now  don't  call  me  names  and  say  I  am  a  communist,  a 
socialist,  an  anarchist,  a  collectivism  or  what  you  like.  I  am 
nothing  but  a  man  who  wants  to  live  a  just  and  righteous  life 
in  the  midst  of  a  just  and  righteous  community,  but  I  am 
aware  that  this  is  impossible  —  and  you  are  all  of  one  mind  with 
me,  I  have  no  doubt.  Don't  bother  over  words;  don't  be  afraid 
of  communism, 'of  socialism,  or  any  other  ism;  look  for  what  is 
right  and  try  to  do  it.  If  communism  means  the  possession  of 
goods  in  common,  do  we  not  see  communism,  real  practical 
communism,  springing  up  everywhere?  I  ask  you,  is  a  public 


i8o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

library  not  communism?  is  a  museum  not  communism?  is 
Yellowstone  Park  not  communism? 

We  all  know  that  Yellowstone  Park  is  a  beautiful  reality 
and  that  it  is  good  and  possible  to  have  things  in  common,  but 
what  we  do  not  know  is  the  answer  to  the  following  questions: 
what  things  do  we  have  in  common,  can  we  have  in  common, 
and  ought  we  to  have  in  common  ? 

I  consider  these  among  the  greatest,  the  most  urgent,  the 
most  important  questions  of  our  present  life.  And  mind! 
They  cannot  be  solved  by  clever  reasoning  nor  by  any  amount 
of  reading  and  theories.  They  can  be  solved  only  by  practice, 
by  facts,  by  careful  investigation  and  patient  experiment,  not 
by  words  alone,  but  by  deeds,  deeds,  deeds! 

Only  to  contribute  my  small  part  to  the  solution  of  these  great 
questions  I  have  sacrificed  many  years  of  my  life,  a  good  deal 
of  my  strength,  my  whole  fortune,  and,  most  precious  of  all, 
time  and  effort  that  I  could  have  given  to  my  art.  And  though 
everybody  may  disagree  with  me,  I  do  not  consider  the  issue 
of  the  enterprise  a  failure,  because,  most  decidedly,  the  desired 
solution  has  been  brought  nearer  by  it. 

In  the  first  place,  my  experience  taught  me  in  a  decisive  way 
that  our  original  form  of  communism  as  practised  by  the  ancient 
Christians,  according  to  the  Gospel,  is  not  only  utterly  impos- 
sible, but  also  undesirable.  We  all  have  met  people  who  main- 
tain that  even  in  the  present  condition  of  society  we  ought  to 
follow  the  example  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles  to  the  letter  and 
do  away  with  private  property.  This  sort  of  people  also  flocked 
to  me  at  the  beginning  of  my  experiments,  and  it  is  a  fact  of 
which  you  may  easily  assure  yourselves  that  it  is  no  use  at  all 
to  tell  these  people  that  history  teaches  us  over  and  over  again 
that  idealism  is  untenable.  You  may  point  out  to  them  the 
instance  of  Saint  Francis,  whose  heroic  efforts  all  came  to 
nothing,  in  a  short  time,  even  during  his  lifetime.  You  may 
show  that  his  followers  soon  gave  up  their  scorn  of  money  and 
that  all  those  sects  or  little  groups  that  tried  to  do  what  he  did 
and  to  live  a  life  of  poverty  and  absolute  communism  failed  — 
it  is  no  use.  The  only  way  to  convert  these  fanatics  is  the  way 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  181 

that  I  choose  —  that  is,  to  give  them  a  fair  trial  in  hard  earnest 
in  practical  life. 

In  my  experiment  it  soon  came  to  light  that  the  most  fanatical 
communists  were  the  first  to  complain  of  this  painful  and  arti- 
ficial situation.  They  wanted  back  their  private  home  life, 
their  own  family  circle,  their  private  possession  of  house  and 
furniture,  even  of  money;  they  realized  very  soon  that  this  so- 
called  liberty  was  worse  than  slavery.  Of  course,  they  threw 
the  blame  on  others,  considering  themselves,  each  of  them,  as 
the  only  person  fit  for  this  sort  of  life;  but  there  is  no  need  to 
explain  that  their  arguments  were  not  very  convincing. 

We  want  to  know,  first  of  all,  what  goods  ought  to  become  public 
property  in  a  well-ordered  community.  We  want  to  know  how 
we  are  to  deal  in  a  just  and  rightful  way  with  capital  and  rent. 

Not  to  do  away  with  them,  as  these  fanatics  would  have  us  to 
do,  for  civilized  mankind  could  not  exist  without  them  —  but  to 
handle  them  ably,  fairly,  and  justly. 

We  want  to  know  how  to  deal  with  wealth  so  as  to  give  it  an 
equitable  distribution,  not  to  do  away  with  wealth,  for  poverty 
is  not  at  all  a  venerable  and  holy  thing,  as  any  man  with  sound 
reason  and  open  eyes  may  know.  It  is  rather  a  dreadful  curse, 
in  violent  opposition  to  the  higher  gifts  of  the  race,  to  art, 
science,  wisdom,  and  culture.  Poverty  is  degrading,  brutaliz- 
ing, nursing  all  sorts  of  lower  animal  instincts,  suppressing 
the  more  spiritual  and  divine  human  faculties.  It  is  always 
akin  to  squalor.  Whereas  wealth  is  and  has  always  been  the 
source  of  art,  of  science  and  culture,  of  beauty  and  wisdom. 
No  great  civilization  has  come  into  bloom  without  wealth. 
Wealth  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  glory  of  those  famous 
centres  of  human  development,  of  Egypt,  of  Athens,  of  Rome, 
of  Florence,  of  the  Netherlands,  of  England. 

But,  mind  you,  the  good  effect  is  caused  only  by  common 
wealth.  Common  wealth  is  a  blessing  and  a  necessity  for 
higher  spiritual  development.  No  high  spiritual  mark  can  be 
reached  without  leisure  and  no  leisure  without  common  wealth. 

But  private  wealth,  without  restriction  or  limitation,  as  we 
know  it  in  our  present  disordered  society,  is  a  curse,  and  a 


182  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

cause  of  deprivation  and  ruin,  of  idiotic  and  suicidal  waste. 
The  slightest  knowledge  of  the  fate  of  the  great  civilizations 
will  teach  you  this.  Wherever  the  private  individual  has  been 
allowed  to  accumulate  unbounded  riches  for  his  own  use  only, 
for  extending  his  own  private  power,  the  result  has  been  a  fatal 
luxury,  resulting  in  deprivation  and  demoralization,  to  the  com- 
plete ruin  of  the  community. 

And  I  lay  this  question  before  you  Americans:  Do  you  really 
think  that  this  rule,  so  clearly  taught  by  human  history,  no 
longer  holds  good?  Do  you  really  think,  citizens  of  this  great 
Republic,  that  you  will  escape  the  fate  of  the  great  Roman 
Empire  if  you  continue  to  neglect  the  most  obvious  lesson  of 
history?  Well,  I  am  a  citizen  of  a  small  kingdom  which  has 
no  longer  any  predominant  voice  in  the  assembly  of  nations, 
but  Holland,  now  an  insignificant  kingdom,  was  once  a  power- 
ful republic,  and  it  had  its  dreams  of  imperialism  just  as  much 
as  you  have  now.  And  by  neglecting  this  great  principle,  that 
common  wealth  is  a  blessing,  but  unbounded  private  wealth  is 
a  curse,  my  poor  country  has  fallen  to  depths  of  humiliation 
and  shame  which  might  be  something  of  a  warning  to  you. 

Do  you  really  believe  that  your  present  social  institutions  are 
more  truly  democratic  and  a  better  guarantee  against  common 
dissolution  and  ruin  than  were  those  of  the  Athens  of  Pericles 
and  the  Rome  of  the  elder  Cato?  Do  you  even  pretend  to  have 
realized  the  idea  of  a  democratic  republic  as  it  lived  a  little  more 
than  a  century  ago  in  the  minds  of  the  great  founders  of  the 
American  nation?  Do  you  think  that  if  Franklin  or  Washing- 
ton could  return  at  this  day  they  would  exclaim,  "That  is  it! 
there  we  are!  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  we  have  dreamt  of  and 
struggled  for!" 

Are  you  really  not  aware  that  you,  the  Republic  par  excel- 
lence, where  no  titles,  no  aristocracy,  no  decorations,  are  said  to 
be  allowed  —  that  you  are  not  a  bit  farther  from  becoming  a 
monarchy,  with  all  its  attributes,  than  the  Roman  Republic 
was  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  or  than  the  first 
French  Republic  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century? 
Do  you  not  realize  that  in  your  present  condition  you  deserve 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  183 

to  become  a  monarchy,  and  that  your  fate  is  therefore  imminent, 
because  every  nation  gets  the  government  that  it  deserves  and 
nothing  better?  If  you  do  not  see  this  or  believe  it,  I  daresay 
the  sad  experience  of  my  own  poor  nation  gives  me  a  right  to 
smile  at  your  optimism.  We  also  fought  one  big  tyrant  and  we 
got  a  lot  of  little  ones  instead. 

Not  only  from  human  history,  but  also  from  natural  history, 
can  we  learn  some  useful  lessons  about  wealth,  common  wealth 
and  private  wealth,  and  the  only  safe  and  lasting  relation  between 
the  two. 

Among  the  many  trades  that  I  took  in  hand  for  a  practical 
study  of  sociology  was  that  of  beekeeping,  and  by  observation 
of  the  bee  community  we  may  find  some  fundamental  principles 
which  are  valuable  in  human  society  as  well  as  in  that  of  bees. 
Bees  are  capitalists;  they  accumulate  immense  stores;  the  bees 
born  in  spring  die  in  autumn,  and  during  their  short  summer 
life  they  not  only  work  for  themselves,  but  they  perform  an 
incredible  amount  of  extra  labour,  and  the  fruits  of  this  labour, 
the  surplus  value,  as  socialists  would  call  it,  they  leave  to  the 
community,  for  the  benefit  of  the  bees  born  in  autumn,  in  order 
that  they  may  live  out  the  winter  and  reach  the  next  spring. 

This  fact  is  remarkable  enough  and  a  grand  lesson  for  man- 
kind, but  still  more  remarkable  and  a  constant  source  of  won- 
der and  admiration  for  the  observer  is  this  fact:  that  every 
single  bee  is  constantly  in  immediate  contact  with  vast  quanti- 
ties of  honey  and  yet  never  uses  more  for  his  private  want  than 
is  strictly  necessary.  Yea,  its  self-control  and  self-denial  go 
so  far  that,  when  want  and  famine  come  in,  the  last  drop  of 
honey  is  rigorously  preserved  for  the  queen  bee,  the  mother  of 
the  race,  and  every  private  individual  gives  itself  up  to  volun- 
tary starvation.  This  wonderful  economy  is  well  worth  pon- 
dering over.  Is  there  not  something  in  it  that  ought  to  make 
mankind  blush  for  shame? 

Here,  then,  we  see  capitalism  in  combination  with  communism, 
and  more  than  that,  we  see  that  this  combination  is  the  only 
way  to  make  both  capitalism  and  communism  practicable  and 
useful  for  individual  and  community. 


184  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

And  last,  not  least,  we  find  the  answer  to  the  questions  how 
and  when  a  just  and  righteous  commonwealth  can  be  established. 
The  answer  is,  only  when  the  individuals  of  the  human  com- 
munity have  acquired  the  self-control  of  the  bees  and  know 
how  to  live  in  private  soberness,  in  the  immediate  presence  of 
vast  common  wealth.  Do  you  doubt  the  possibility  of  such 
self-denial?  Well,  then,  I  declare  myself  in  this  respect  the 
optimist,  and  there  smile  at  your  pessimism.  More  faith  than 
in  the  so-called  democratic  institution  of  the  America  of  to-day 
have  I  in  the  ultimate  sound  reason  of  the  human  race,  and  above 
all  in  its  instinct  of  self-preservation. 

For  nothing  else  than  sound  reason  and  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  will  teach  mankind,  all  of  it,  that  individual  self- 
control,  limited  private  wealth,  are  the  only  means  to  keep 
community  and  individual  from  demoralization  and  destruction. 
It  is  so  very  clear  that  the  present  social  institutions  of  man- 
kind are  suicidal,  being  pernicious  for  the  individual  and  the 
race,  that  if  we  did  not  know  the  power  of  convention,  the  per- 
tinacity of  certain  errors,  and  the  inertia  of  the  mind  of  the 
masses,  we  could  hardly  understand  how  man  can  so  thought- 
lessly work  for  his  own  undoing.  The  great  danger  I  see  in 
your  American  life  is  that  the  most  capable  individuals  are 
allowed  to  accumulate  for  their  own  private  use  such  a  quantity 
of  wealth  that,  long  before  they  lose  their  working  power,  they 
have  lost  every  stimulus  to  work  on,  and  can,  if  they  like,  live 
in  the  greatest  luxury,  they  and  their  children,  simply  by 
doing  nothing. 

I  pray  you  to  mark  this  well:  I  don't  see  any  danger  in  the 
fact  that  the  most  capable  and  ablest  men  are  remunerated  very 
highly,  so  as  to  give  them  full  satisfaction.  But  the  imminent 
peril  for  us  all,  for  society  and  individual,  for  us  and  our 
children,  lies  here  —  that  every  man  has  before  him  the  possi- 
bility of  giving  up  his  labour  altogether  and  of  living  on  his 
money — that  is  to  say,  on  usury  and  parasitism  —  without  giving 
any  equivalent  in  useful  work. 

Must  it  not  be  clear,  even  to  the  mind  of  a  mere  child,  that  in 
this  way  society  is  gradually  losing  its  best  forces,  that  in  our 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  185 

present  social  order  the  highest  premium  is  given  not  for  good 
work  but  for  sheer  idleness,  and  that,  inevitably,  this  idleness 
will  grow  and  grow,  and  this  general  ideal  will  become  more  and 
more  to  grow  very  rich  and  do  nothing  at  all  but  enjoy  and  in- 
vent fresh  forms  of  excitement  and  pleasure? 

It  is  true  that  the  accumulating  instinct,  the  activity  of 
money-getting,  works  on  in  many  individuals,  though  they  may 
have  become  millionaires.  But  it  will  soon  die  out  in  their 
children  who  are  born  rich.  And  anybody  who  is  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  psychology  of  the  Dutch  nation  will  know 
that  we  were  just  as  active,  two  centuries  ago,  just  as  smart, 
acute,  go-ahead,  as  the  Americans  of  to-day  —  and  yet  these 
faculties  have  been  lost  in  a  few  generations  by  the  influence 
of  private  wealth,  and  it  is  only  by  the  example  of  the  nations 
around  us  that  we  have  been  stimulated  or  compelled  more  or 
less  to  regain  something  of  our  former  energy.  Only  think  of 
this:  A  society,  obliged  to  rely  on  the  working  capacities  of  its 
members  and  having  for  its  general  ideal  the  ambition  to  be 
very  rich  and  do  nothing  at  all,  except  squandering  the  products 
of  common  activity!  If  this  may  not  be  called  suicidal,  what 
may? 

People  talk  of  egotism,  and  tell  me  that  human  egotism  is  too 
strong  to  make  a  better  social  order  possible.  But  I  should  like 
to  ask  if  you  call  it  egotism  to  set  your  own  house  on  fire  and 
poison  your  children.  Are  we  not  acting  just  as  foolishly  by 
allowing  every  individual  to  be  spoiled  and  demoralized  by 
extravagances  and  idleness,  paying  them  simply  because  they 
are  rich  and  do  nothing?  This  is  not  egotism;  it  is  folly  and 
self-destruction. 

If  we  only  nourished,  by  common  labour  and  consent,  a  set  of 
worthless  parasites,  who  spent  the  common  goods  in  idleness 
and  luxury,  the  harm  would  not  be  so  great.  It  would  be  only 
ridiculous,  for  an  industrious  community  could  easily  afford  the 
extravagance  just  as  it  can  afford  to  keep  zoological  gardens. 
But  we  are  constantly  pushing  our  best  men,  our  most  capable 
workers,  into  this  whirlpool  of  luxury  and  extravagance,  ruin- 
ing them  and  their  families,  by  allowing  them  to  live  on  the 


i86  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

fruits  of  accumulated  wealth,  without  any  labour.  And  this 
is  draining  society  of  its  best  powers,  bleeding  it  slowly  to  death. 
Slowly,  I  say  —  but  in  the  history  of  human  civilization  the 
rate  is  relatively  quick.  Two  centuries  sufficed  to  bring  the 
once  glorious  Dutch  Republic  to  the  verge  of  extinction. 

You  will  ask  me,  of  course,  if  I  have  found  a  remedy;  if  I 
see  a  way  out  of  this  difficulty.  My  answer  is:  Have  you,  who 
ask  me,  ever  sought  it,  in  hard  earnest?  Surely  not,  for  if  you 
had,  you  would  not  put  that  question  to  me.  You  might  just 
as  well  ask  me  if  I  see  a  way  out  of  New  York.  It  is  very  hard 
to  see  it  —  if  you  don't  look  for  it. 

For  many  years  I  have  sought  for  a  way  out  of  the  social 
disorder,  or  rather  the  imperfect  order,  in  which  we  live  at 
present.  I  have  looked  and  sought  for  it  in  hard  earnest. 
And  I  have  found  that  it  is  extremely  easy  to  see  and  point  out  — 
just  as  easy  as  to  see  and  to  point  out  the  waterway  between 
Atlantic  and  Pacific.  But  to  make  that  way  and  to  use  it,  is 
another  question.  For  nobody  can  do" that  alone!  Of  this  I  am  con- 
vinced, that  if  there  were  as  many  men  who  went  to  work  with  a 
will  and  set  all  their  heart  and  energy  to  it  as  are  now  working 
at  that  great  waterway  —  the  way  out  of  our  social  confusion 
would  be  traced  and  completed  sooner  than  the  canal  of  Panama. 
But  we  should  not  only  need  the  hands  for  digging  and  shovel- 
ling, but  also  the  engineers  and  the  great  leading  minds  to 
organize  the  work. 

Let  us  consider  what  the  task  would  mean.  It  would  mean 
the  formation  of  a  community  which  would  keep  in  common 
possession  those  goods  that,  for  the  welfare  and  preservation 
of  all,  ought  to  remain  common  property,  and  which  moreover 
would  not  allow  any  of  its  capable  members  to  squander  the 
common  goods  without  giving  useful  work  —  a  community 
which  would  restrict  the  possibilities  of  extravagance,  usury, 
parasitism  and  idleness  —  and  which  on  the  other  hand  would 
suffer  no  pauperism,  and  would  never  let  any  capable  and 
willing  member  starve  for  want  of  work.  Do  you  believe  the 
formation  of  such  a  community  a  miracle?  —  a  greater  miracle 
than  the  Panama  Canal?  Well,  then,  I  assure  you  that  human 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  187 

society  must  have  nothing  less  than  such  a  miracle,  or  it  will 
go  to  a  bad  place  in  an  astonishingly  short  time. 

In  this  address  I  can  give  you  no  theories.  I  can  give  only 
short  hints  and  opinions,  based  on  lifelong  study  and  hard 
experience.  But  I  am  ready  to  explain  and  discuss  those 
opinions  at  any  time  as  explicitly  as  you  like.  In  this  country, 
the  country  of  Henry  George,  I  need  not  be  explicit  on  the 
injustice  of  private  land-ownership,  and  the  advantages  of  com- 
mon possession  of  the  soil. 

I  started  in  Holland,  six  years  ago,  a  Society  for  the  Common 
Possession  of  the  Land.  This  society  still  exists,  and  I  consider 
its  experimental  work  extremely  important  and  instructive.  But 
I  have,  in  the  course  of  my  personal  experiments,  found  that 
common  possession  of  the  soil  is  utterly  worthless,  even  per- 
nicious, if  the  community  to  which  the  soil  belongs  is  not 
well  organized.  Private  ownership  in  the  hands  of  a  good 
landlord  is  eminently  preferable  to  common  ownership  in  the 
hands  of  a  badly  trained  and  poorly  organized  community. 
This  is  the  clue  to  that  puzzling  but  generally  acknowledged 
fact,  that  land-communism  as  it  still  exists  in  Russia,  Java,  and 
other  countries,  is  no  advantage  but  a  strong  impediment  to 
the  welfare  of  the  population. 

Organization,  strict,  powerful,  perfectly  functionating  or- 
ganization, that  is  the  all-commanding  condition  of  communism 
in  general  and  of  land-communism  in  particular.  I  might  even 
go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  better  organized  a  community  is, 
the  more  complete  will  be  the  form  of  communism  which  it 
can  stand.  In  an  absolutely  perfect  organization,  to  which 
the  human  race  will  perhaps  adapt  itself  in  a  thousand  years, 
the  idea  of  private  property  or  possession  would  have  lost  its 
meaning  altogether.  A  faint  hint  of  this  condition  we  have 
on  a  very  small  scale  in  the  well-to-do  household  of  a  wise  and 
loving  family  circle. 

But  it  would  be  a  sad  mistake  to  think  that  because  we  can 
never  expect  the  wisdom,  culture,  love,  and  intelligence  neces- 
sary for  a  perfect  form  of  communism  in  the  great  mass  of  the 
humanity  of  our  days  —  that  therefore  every  nearer  approach 


i88  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

to   communism   is   impossible.     Have   we   not   made   gigantic 
steps  in  advance  toward  it  in  the  last  century? 

The  most  important  step,  however,  which  I,  after  my  expe- 
rience, still  think  necessary,  possible,  and  even  imminent  —  is 
the  communization  of  the  means  of  production.  Capital  itself 
—  and  its  investment  —  must  be  communized. 

But  capital  in  another  form,  and  its  accumulation,  rent, 
ought  to  come  first.  The  communization  of  capital  and  rent, 
the  transferring  of  the  accumulation  of  goods  to  the  hands  of 
the  community,  that  is  the  first  and  more  important  step  we 
have  to  make  in  the  interest  of  all  humanity.  In  a  way  this  is 
done  already  in  the  cooperative  societies  which  are  existing  in 
Europe.  But  it  is  not  done  methodically  and  rigorously.  We 
may  distinguish  two  schemes  of  organization.  The  first  is 
that  of  the  fanatic  communist:  His  rule  is:  Labour  according 
to  inclination,  award  according  to  want.  I  say,  by  the  right 
of  my  personal  experience,  that  this  rule  is,  at  this  momen 
absolutely  impossible,  untenable,  and  pernicious. 

The  other  rule,  generally  called  that  of  the  cooperator,  is 
this:  Labour  according  to  capacity,  award  according  to  the 
work  done.  That  is  to  say:  Means  of  production,  common 
property;  accumulation  —  capital  and  rent  —  in  the  hands  of 
the  community;  wages  given  according  to  the  given  work, 
after  the  standard  of  general  appreciation  shown  by  supply 
and  demand;  not  doing  away  with  rent  and  capital,  but  taking 
it  out  of  the  hands  of  the  private  individual,  because  no  individ- 
ual is  strong  enough  to  bear  the  freedom  and  the  power  of 
unbounded  wealth.  The  rule  includes  free  and  ample  reward 
of  the  most  capable.  Give  the  workman  what  he  asks  for 
his  work,  with  this  restriction  only,  that  he  shall  work  on  so 
long  as  he  is  in  full  working  condition,  and  that  he  shall  never 
amass  so  much  wealth  as  to  free  himself  and  all  his  offspring 
from  the  obligation  to  be  useful  to  the  community. 

And  here  the  great  question  presents  itself:  What  sort  of 
community  shall  that  be  in  whose  hands  we  trust  the  owner- 
ship of  common  goods?  How  shall  it  be  localized?  Who  shall 
form  it?  How  shall  it  be  organized  ?  Who  shall  be  its  members? 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  189 

I  have  no  space  here  to  go  deeper  into  this  question.  I  can 
give  only  a  few  preliminary  hints. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  not  make  the  general  mistake  of 
identifying  the  community  with  the  political  state.  We  must 
remember  the  origin  of  the  state,  and  the  character  resulting 
from  that  origin.  The  original  state  was  formed  for  two  pur- 
poses, for  defence  and  conquest.  And  our  present  political 
state  is  a  remnant  of  those  times  when  every  nation  was  also  an 
economical  entity,  subsisting  by  its  own  means,  and  trying  to 
subsist,  if  possible,  by  the  conquest  of  other  nations  and  the 
rapine  of  goods,  taken  or  extorted  by  violence.  This  is  the  most 
important  distinction  we  have  to  make  in  our  present  days. 
It  has  never  been  rightly  and  clearly  made  until  now.  On 
this  distinction  depends  the  coming  solution  of  all  social 
problems. 

There  are  two  forms  of  human  groupment:  The  older  form 
is  the  Empire  held  together  by  political  means.  Its  aims  are 
rapine,  conquest,  and  defence.  It  tries  to  subsist  on  the  work 
of  subjects,  subjugating  workers,  who  are  compelled  to  sur- 
render a  part  of  the  fruit  of  their  own  labour.  It  implies 
the  existence  of  a  dominating  group  and  a  submissive,  exploited 
group.  Its  power  rests  on  armed  force,  on  violence,  and  iniquity. 
Its  symbols  are  the  eagle  and  the  lion  —  beasts  of  prey. 

The  other,  newer  form,  is  the  Commonwealth  held  together 
by  economical  means.  Its  aims  are  a  fair  and  honest  exchange 
of  goods  for  goods,  a  peaceful  commerce,  an  organized  cooper- 
ation for  the  common  benefit,  for  the  full  development  of 
human  life  and  powers.  It  does  not  imply  absolute  equality, 
but  it  advocates  no  greater  difference  than  is  necessitated  by 
different  inclination,  aptitude,  and  capacities.  Its  powers  are 
science,  mutual  aid,  good-will,  and  understanding.  Its  symbol 
is  the  bee,  the  animal  of  communistic  capitalism  —  not  defence- 
less, forsooth,  but  doing  no  harm  where  no  harm  is  intended. 

And  this  new  organization  is  everywhere  growing  over  and 
surpassing  political,  even  national,  boundaries.  A  great  net  of 
commerce  and  traffic  is  overspreading  the  world,  and  the  com- 
mercial bonds  of  people  of  the  most  widely  different  nations  are 


i9o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

often  stronger  than  those  of  the  members  of  one  political  nation. 
By  the  light  of  this  fact  we  may  easily  see  that  the  human 
community  of  the  future  will  not  be  outlined  by  our  present 
political  boundaries. 

It  is  true  that  the  administrative  and  legislative  order  of 
society  is  yet  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  political  state,  and  it 
is  right  and  necessary  that  it  should  remain  so  for  a  long  time; 
for  this  order  at  present  may  not  slacken  for  one  moment.  But 
it  need  not  always  remain  so;  there  may  one  day  be  organized 
an  international  commercial  body  which  shall  surpass  all  our 
political  states  in  power  and  strength. 

In  the  second  place  I  think  it  utterly  useless  to  wait  for  the 
political  state  to  make  laws  for  us,  before  we  attempt  to  alter 
the  present  form  of  social  organization.  I  should  like  to  ask 
if  all  those  who  firmly  believe  in  the  necessity  and  possibility 
of  a  better  social  order  are  not  absolutely  free  at  any  moment 
to  join  hands  all  over  the  world,  and  to  form  a  body  or  corpora- 
tion with  exactly  those  experimental  rules  and  institutions  that 
they  think  just  and  rightful? 

I  put  this  question  before  all  malcontents,  before  all  socialists, 
all  revolutionaries,  all  communists  and  class  fighters.  Why 
do  you  not  all  join  hands  and  make  laws  and  institutions  and 
rules  after  your  own  heart,  doing  business  in  the  way  you 
think  just,  bringing  capital  into  common  possession,  outgrow- 
ing and  outwitting  the  political  states  and  your  opponents? 

My  practical  experiments  have  given  me  the  answer,  which 
the  theorists  could  not  give  me.  The  reason  is  that  men  are 
not  at  all  the  independently  and  rationally  acting  animals 
they  think  themselves  to  be.  They  are  acting  and  thinking 
always  more  or  less  herdwise,  under  the  influence  of  great 
leading  minds,  and  strong  spiritual  currents.  If  they  were 
thinking  and  acting  rationally  and  independently,  a  great 
commercial  body  with  a  just  and  righteous  social  organization 
could  easily  and  quickly  be  formed;  and  it  would,  because  of  its 
greater  self-preservation  and  strength,  easily  outgrow  all  other 
human  corporations  and  organizations.  But  in  the  present 
condition  of  mankind  such  a  community  will  not  be  formed  un- 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  191 

less  a  great,  powerful  mind,  a  commercial  and  organizing  genius, 
takes  the  matter  in  hand  and  sets  all  his  life  and  heart  to  it. 
The  fact  is  humiliating,  but  we  must  accept  it. 

Now,  two  things  are  very  clear  to  me:  In  the  first  place, 
that  I  am  not  this  genius;  in  the  second  place,  that  I  may  be 
able  to  find  him,  even  to  inspire  him  to  his  glorious  task,  at  any 
moment  of  my  life.  That  such  a  man  may  arise  any  day,  and 
that  his  name  will  be  more  glorified  by  posterity  than  that  of 
Carsar  or  Napoleon,  I  firmly  believe. 

Have  we  not  dazzling  instances  of  the  swift  achievements  of 
one  single  commercial  or  organizing  genius.  But  we  need  not 
confine  ourselves,  in  our  search  for  examples,  to  the  captains 
of  industry,  who  worked  with  more  or  less  selfish  and  narrow 
aims.  We  have  the  instance  of  a  very  generous-minded  man 
who  surely  did  not  work  for  personal  benefit,  and  who  achieved 
a  wonderful  feat  of  organization  that  extended  over  the  whole 
world.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  Salvation  Army  we 
cannot  deny  that  as  an  example  of  organization  with  unselfish 
purpose  it  stands  unique  in  the  history  of  civilization.  This 
great  body  is  the  work  of  one  leading  mind.  And  we  must  all 
agree  that  it  has  done  much  good,  on  a  gigantic  scale,  for  the 
rescue 'of  the  destitute  and  the  fallen. 

But  now,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so,  I  should  far  more 
highly  appreciate  the  creation  of  a  Salvation  Army  which 
prevented  the  making  of  destitutes  and  sinners.  For  if  one  thing 
wants  salvation  at  the  present  time,  it  is  labour.  On  one  hand 
we  see  the  capacity  for  labour  threatened  by  demoralizing  ex- 
travagance. On  the  other  hand  we  see  thousands  of  men  who 
are  able  and  willing  to  work,  starving  and  hungry,  spending 
their  time  in  enforced  idleness  in  meetings  and  demonstrations, 
embittered  by  their  own  uselessness,  spreading  discontent,  and 
disturbing  the  peace  of  the  community.  And  all  for  want  of 
organization! 

To  call  this  evil  unavoidable  would  be  a  shame  for  human 
intelligence.  Where  thousands  of  hands  are  ready  to  work 
there  ought  to  be  bread,  there  .must  be  bread.  The  only  thing 
wanted  is  the  brain  to  guide  these  thousands  of  hands.  A 


i92  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

former  speaker,  when  asked  about  unemployment,  said:  "God 
knows,  I  see  no  help." 

Well,  7  dare  to  say  I  see  it  clearly  enough.  But  it  cannot 
be  given  like  a  drug,  with  immediate  effect. 

Often,  when  I  was  practising  medicine,  patients  came  to  me, 
asking  my  help,  wanting  to  be  cured  —  patients  who  were  ill 
in  consequence  of  a  disordered,  dissolute  Jife.  And  when  I  told 
them  that  I  could  certainly  cure  them,  if  they  would  give  up 
their  way  of  living,  eat  no  big  meals,  drink  less  wine,  and  live 
more  soberly  and  wisely  altogether,  then  they  said,  "Oh,  no!  I 
want  you  to  cure  me  at  once  with  medicine,  and  without  chang- 
ing my  way  of  life."  These  people  I  sent  to  another  doctor. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  question  of  the  unemployed.  Surely 
their  condition  is  not  their  fault,  but  the  fault  of  the  community; 
and  that  fault  has  to  be  bettered  methodically  and  slowly. 

In  the  first  place,  no  help  for  the  unemployed  can  begin  with 
the  unemployed  themselves.  I  once  tried  to  help  two  hundred 
unemployed  by  starting  a  business  enterprise  with  them;  but  it 
failed,  and  now  I  know  why  it  was  bound  to  fail.  Any  business 
man  here  will  understand  the  reason;  those  workmen  who 
get  first  out  of  work  are  never  the  most  capable.  They  may  be 
good,  honest,  useful,  average  workers;  they  are  never  the  best 
of  their  set.  Employers  are  shrewd  enough  to  keep  the  best  for 
the  last.  Any  new  scheme  started  with  those  middling  forces 
is  bound  to  fail. 

No,  the  only  way  of  definitely  dealing  with  the  great  evil  is 
to  start  a  business  organization  wherein  unemployment  is 
methodically  prevented  —  an  organization  that  never  turns  off 
its  workmen  —  a  Labour-Salvation  Army.  Such  an  organization 
is  possible  if  it  produces  only,  or  principally,  for  the  fixed  market 
of  its  own  consumers;  if  it  starts  no  trades  on  speculation;  and 
if  it  combines  such  different  trades  as  to  secure  an  employment 
for  all  its  members  by  shifting  the  unskilled  hands  or  adjusting 
the  half-skilled  for  different  work,  according  to  seasons  or 
temporal  want. 

And  this  sort  of  organization,  this  commercial  body,  it  is  that 
shall  form  the  real  commonwealth  of  the  future.  This  is  the 


TO  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  193 

complete  form  of  cooperation  as  Owen  had  it  in  his  mind  in 
England  seventy-five  years  ago.  This  shall  be  the  economical 
commonwealth  that  shall  slowly  outgrow  and  finally  supplant 
the  political  one. 

I  know  it  is  difficult  for  most  people  to  accept  this  prediction, 
because  it  demands  an  effort  of  the  imagination,  and  most 
people  have  little  or  no  imagination.  But  all  new  ideas  have 
needed  that  effort  and  have  suffered  from  the  absence  of  it. 

This  is  why  I  bring  before  you  the  image  of  that  widespread 
and  powerful  organization,  the  Salvation  Army.  The  Salva- 
tion Army  is  not  localized  here  or  there,  in  small  communities, 
as  people  expect  the  new  social  form  of  life  to  be.  It  is  spread 
everywhere  in  the  midst  of  the  active  world.  Similarly  the 
organization  of  honest  and  righteous  workers  and  of  business 
men  must  be  universal,  working  everywhere,  in  the  midst  of 
the  old  society  growing  up  among  it  until  it  outgrows  and 
overspreads  it,  as  a  young,  strong,  fast-growing  tree  outgrows 
and  overspreads  the  underbrush.  We  don't  want  to  cut  down, 
we  simply  want  to  grow.  The  rest  will  come  by  itself. 

And  like  the  Salvation  Army  we  have  to  start  small  and  grow 
slowly  in  the  beginning  like  the  seed  of  the  coming  tree.  We 
need  not  be  destructive,  we  may  be  only  constructive.  By 
growing,  the  healthy  tree  will  kill  the  thorns  and  poisonous 
underbrush,  and  posterity  will  rest  in  its  shade  and  bless  those 
that  confided  the  seed  to  earth.  Such  a  Salvation  Army  is  far 
more  wanted  than  the  existing  one.  What  we  need  is  a  Salvation 
Army  which  would  save  the  good  character,  the  capacities,  the 
morals,  the  intellect  of  mankind  from  wholesale  destruction, 
by  unbounded  private  wealth  and  its  consequent  extravagance, 
idleness  and  luxury;  which  would  do  business,  hard,  serious 
business,  without  falling  into  the  snare  of  self-destruction  that 
now  awaits  every  prosperous  business  man;  which  would  ac- 
cumulate unbounded  capital  by  trade  and  commerce,  but 
never  allow  it  to  be  squandered  by  private  individuals  turned 
into  fools  by  too  much  liberty  and  power;  which  by  a  few 
strict,  simple  rules  would  exclude  the  usurer  and  the  parasite, 
allowing  no  one  of  its  members  still  fit  for  work  to  spend  his 


194  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

time  in  idleness  or  the  common  goods  in  insipid  amusements; 
which  would  suffer  neither  spendthrifts  in  its  organization,  nor 
capable  men  starving  for  want  of  work;  which  would  take  care 
of  its  old  workers  and  invalids  in  an  honourable,  not  humilia- 
ting, manner;  which  would  encourage  art  and  science  with  un- 
bounded liberality  as  the  great  uplifting  factors  of  mankind; 
which  would  take  care,  with  broad-minded  generosity,  of  the 
education  of  its  younger  members  as  the  great  well-spring  of 
human  perfection. 

Such  a  Labour-Salvation  Army  I  am  dreaming  of.  I  am  not 
the  man  to  bring  it  about,  for  I  am  only  a  dreamer  of  dreams. 
But  I  pray  you  to  recollect  that  all  present  reality  had  for  its 
father  a  dream  in  past  ages;  and  that  the  dreamer  of  dreams, 
in  days  gone  by,  was  called  a  fool,  just  as  I  am  often  called  now. 

And  again  I  want  you  not  to  be  the  slave  of  a  word.  You  are 
free  to  call  my  dream  communism,  collectivism,  socialism,  co- 
operation, anti-parasitism,  or  to  invent  a  brand-new  label  for  it. 
But  this  I  maintain,  that  it  has  the  creative  power  of  vitality, 
that  it  is  no  personal  hobby  of  mine,  but  lives  in  the  souls  of 
thousands  and  millions;  and  even  that  there  may  be  some  of 
the  youngest  among  you  who  shall  see  it  turn  some  day  into 
glorious  Reality. 

Vide  "Questions,"  in  Appendix  II. 


CHAPTER  IV 


WHAT   I    SAID   TO   AMERICAN    BUSINESS   MEN 

A  DRESSING  a   number  of  business  men  at 
a    dinner   of  the  Economic  Club  of  New 
York,  at  the  Hotel  Astor,  New  York  City, 
April,  1908,  I  said: 

I  will  assume  that  I  am  speaking  here  to  the  most  powerful 
men  of  this  great  and  busy  country;  to  the  minds  that  lead  its 
real  activity,  its  restless  activity  of  preparing  food,  clothing  and 
housing,  safety  and  free  development  for  the  millions  of  their 
race.  I  am  speaking  to  the  great  American  business  men.  I 
may  be  mistaken,  but  I  assume  such  men  to  be  here,  and  I  will 
address  myself  to  them. 

And  you,  business  men,  are  the  great  centres  of  spiritual 
activity  in  the  present  period;  exactly  because  that  period  is  a 
shifting  and  preliminary  one.  The  house  of  material  ease  and 
comfort,  wherein  mankind  is  to  live  for  centuries  and  aeons 
perhaps,  and  wherein  he  is  to  work  for  the  attainment  of  his 
higher  aims,  that  house  is  in  process  of  being  built.  It  is  not 
yet  finished;  and  you,  business  men,  are  the  builders.  You  are 
at  this  moment  the  most  important  men  in  the  world,  more  im- 
portant than  artists,  men  of  science,  or  thinkers.  These  all  have 
to  make  way  for  you,  just  as  the  tenant  who  is  to  live  in  the 
house  has  to  make  way  for  the  builders,  masons,  carpenters. 
There  is  danger  of  their  getting  bricks  on  their  heads,  or  of 
tumbling  into  the  lime.  The  tenants  are  in  the  way  and  are 
treated  as  nuisances. 


196  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

But  mind  you,  business  men!  There  will  come  a  day,  when 
the  house  is  finished,  when  there  will  be  a  change,  when  the  final 
stage  of  human  society  —  the  stage  of  real  freedom  and  full 
opportunity  for  development  is  attained;  then  we  shall  be  ex- 
tremely grateful  for  your  work,  but  your  importance  will  dimin- 
ish, and  your  merit  will  be  measured  by  this  standard:  in  how 
far  you  did  business  for  the  sake  of  business  alone  or  for  the 
higher  goals  of  human  kind.  .....,..„...„ 

Now  there  may  be  some  of  you  who  still  think  that  every- 
thing is  going  on  as  it  ought  to  go.<^"  God's  in  His  heaven  and 
all's  right  with  the  world  I  "/But  the  fact  that  we  this  evening 
are  discussing  the  influence  of  socialism  shows  that  the  quotation 
must  be  somewhere  in  error. 

Socialism  means  for  some  of  you  a  wild  theory,  expressing 
stupid  envy  and  discontent.  For  others,  in  other  ranks,  it 
means  the  only  good  and  real  organization  of  society,  just  what 
democracy  is  now  meaning  to  most  of  you.  But  to  all  of  you 
socialism  means  something  that  is  spreading,  be  it  for  good  or 
for  ill,  be  it  a  danger  or  a  blessing;  it  is  spreading  and  it  can  be 
no  longer  looked  on  with  contempt  or  indifference. 

There  are  two  attitudes  toward  socialism,  which  to  me  are 
equally  unconvincing.  The  first  is  a  sort  of  nervous,  cowardly 
fear,  crying  for  strong  measures  and  the  law,  wanting  a  whole- 
sale destruction  by  the  electric  chair;  the  other,  a  light-hearted 
contempt,  waving  off  the  question  with  a  lofty  gesture  as  some- 
thing not  worth  worrying  about.  Both  attitudes  will  simply  in- 
crease the  tension  and,  if  continued,  will  bring  on  some  deplora- 
ble outburst,  which  could  have  been  prevented.  If  you  are 
hostile  toward  socialism,  well  —  never  despise  an  enemy.  There 
are  no  more  terrible  wars  than  unprepared  wars,  where  the 
enemy  is  underrated. 

And  there  is  a  form  of  socialism  creeping  now  into  the  country 
—  we  are  all  too  familiar  with  it  in  Europe  —  which  is  preach- 
ing war  and  provoking  war.  I  mean  the  narrow,  dogmatic 
form  of  Marxist  social-democracy.  And  I  believe  it  to  be  my 
special  mission  to  bring  before  the  American  mind  the  falsity 
of  the  assumption  of  these  sectarians  that  they  cover  the  whole 


TO  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MEN         197 

field  of  socialism.  A  few  days  ago  I  had  a  conversation  with 
your  President.  And  it  struck  me  as  an  instance  of  his  sharp 
insight  into  the  condition  of  the  country  that  he  fully  realized 
what  the  spreading  of  the  Marxist  dogma  of  class-conscious- 
ness meant.  He  had  especially  wanted  to  see  me  because  he 
knew  I  was  fighting  against  the  dogma.  And  I  have  been 
fighting  it  for  nearly  twenty  years.  Do  not  underrate  the  dan- 
ger. It  may  be  quite  true  that  the  American  people  will  never 
stand  anything  like  a  violent  revolution;  I  agree  that  the  hope 
of  an  immediate  overthrow  of  the  present  system,  which  some 
of  these  fanatics  profess,  is  more  illusory  here  than  anywhere. 
Yet  do  not  forget  that  even  an  attempt  would  be  extremely 
deplorable,  and  would  cost  certainly  a  great  amount  of  money 
and  very  likely  blood.  So  if  we  can  do  anything  to  prevent  it 
I  think  the  effort  worth  while. 

And  I  know  that  something  can  be  done  to  diminish  the  ten- 
sion, to  lessen  the  sentiment  of  bitterness,  to  give  an  outlet  to 
the  pent-up  feeling  that  social  condition  must  be  improved, 
whether  by  good-will  or  by  hate.  That  there  is  a  pent-up  feel- 
ing of  this  sort,  I  reiterate;  it  would  be  folly  to  deny.  The  floods 
are  at  the  top  of  the  dykes.  By  wise  measures  they  may  be 
drawn  into  the  right  channel  and  become  a  blessing  to  all;  or 
through  stupid  contempt  or  neglect  they  may  break  through 
and  spread  ruin  and  destruction. 

Now  let  us  begin  by  discarding  any  names  and  "isms"  and 
look  to  the  real  heart  of  things.  What  is  it  that  is  wanted  and 
generally  approved,  apart  from  party  programmes  and  sec- 
tarian creeds? 

/Not  equality  of  conditions  but  equality  of  opportunity.     No 

/nan  an  absolute  master  of  his  fellow  men,  no  slavery  —  indi- 

/  vidual  freedom,  but  freedom  limited  and  restricted  by  common 

"K    interest,  so  that  no  man's  freedom  shall  infringe  upon  another 

\  man's  freedom. 

Is  there  any  man  in  this  gathering  who  dares  oppose  this  view? 
And  if  you  want  to  call  me  a  socialist,  do;  all  of  my  socialism 
is  in  that  simple  proposition.  So  according  to  my  view  if  you 
endorse  this  proposition  you  are  all  socialists. 


ig8  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

And  do  you  maintain  that  this  limitation  of  individual  free- 
dom is  not  to  your  liking,  and  that  you  want  to  have  it  larger 
in  your  own  behalf,  with  no  restriction  upon  your  power  to  ag- 
grandize yourself  or  to  maim  the  liberty  of  others  —  well,  then,  I 
will  take  my  revenge,  and  will  label  you  anarchists,  if  you  please! 

Now,  President  Roosevelt  warned  me  of  the  visionary  man, 
and  I  have  some  suspicion  that  he  meant  me.  But  if  I  am 
visionary,  I  want  you  to  be  very  practical.  And  you  will  per- 
haps agree  that  the  practical  man  is  sometimes  not  the  worse  for 
listening  to  the  visionary.  I  know  for  instance  a  visionary  who 
has  had  some  slight  influence  on  the  destinies  of  this  very  prac- 
tical country.  I  trust  I  may  mention  the  name  of  Christopher 
Columbus  without  being  suspected  of  trying  to  compare  myself 
with  him.  But  I,  too,  like  the  visionary  Columbus,  once  sailed 
in  my  small  and  frail  craft  into  the  rough  waters  of  business 
life.  I  did  not  reach  the  land  of  promise,  but  I  did  undoubtedly 
signal  it,  and  you  need  not  go  very  far  to  see  what  I  have  seen. 

The  great  defect  that  I  see  in  your  social  organization  is 
that  it  works  badly.  It  is  a  leaking  pump.  Wealth  is  not 
economically  and  justly  distributed,  but  wasted  for  the  most 
part;  and  Mr.  Hamilton  Emerson,  an  American  authority  on 
shop  efficiency,  has  calculated  that  the  United  States  is  run  on  a 
5  per  cent,  efficiency  basis. 

So  I  am  looking  for  an  organization  that  works  better,  with- 
out waste.  I  want  a  pump  that  does  not  leak  —  one  that, 
simply  because  it  does  not  waste,  will  engender  no  despots  or 
slaves,  no  paupers,  no  unemployed,  no  malcontents,  no  drunk- 
ards. And  the  way  to  stop  the  leak  is  cooperation.  Now,  may 
I  quote  a  few  lines  from  history?  Hoiyoake,  writing  of  an  event 
which  all  the  world  now  remembers  as  epoch-making,  thus 
describes  a  gathering  of  spinners  at  Rochdale,  England,  sixty- 
five  years  ago: 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1843,  on  one  of  those  dark,  dense,  disagreeable  days 
of  our  English  December,  a  few  poor  weavers,  out  of  employment  and  nearly 
out  of  food,  and  quite  out  of  heart  with  the  social  state,  met  together  to  dis- 
cover what  they  could  do  to  better  their  industrial  condition.  Managers  had 


TO  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MEN         199 

capital  and  shopkeepers  had  the  advantage  of  stock;  how  could  they  succeed 
without  either? 

They  would  commence  the  battle  of  life  on  their  own  account.  They 
would,  as  far  as  they  were  themselves  concerned,  supersede  tradesmen, 
mill  owners  and  capitalists.  Without  experience,  or  knowledge,  or  funds, 
they  would  turn  merchants  and  manufacturers.  The  subscription 
list  was  handed  round  —  the  Stock  Exchange  would  not  think  much 
of  the  result.  A  dozen  of  the  Lilliputian  capitalists  put  down  two  pence  each. 

So  this  wild,  pitiful  dream  was  launched  —  set  adrift  in  mid-ocean,  on  the 
stormy  waters  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Thus  writes  the  historian.  And  was  it  a  pitiful  dream?  Well, 
there  is  a  movement  known  as  the  cooperative  movement 
in  England.  This  movement  comprehends  a  vast  chain 
of  productive  and  distributive  centres,  which  year  by  year 
and  inch  by  inch  has  elevated  the  standard  of  living  of 
all  the  lower  middle  class  of  England.  In  1906  the  whole- 
sale department  alone  did  a  business  of  a  hundred  and  four 
millions;  and  this  is  an  item  only  in  the  budget  of  the  unified 
cooperative  movement  of  Europe.  And  from  six  nations  of 
Europe  look  back  in  retrospect  to  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  of 
1843,  who  caught  the  vision,  and  dared,  and  won,  and  as  truly 
founded  the  cooperative  movement  as  Washington  and  his 
compatriots  founded  your  republic.  The  original  Rochdale 
enterprise  still  exists.  It  has  an  annual  trade  of  one  and  a 
quarter  million,  and  employs  three  hundred  workmen  in  its 
workshops  and  stores. 

But  the  Old  World's  cooperation  is  only  partial.  Productive 
cooperation  is  somewhat  developed,  cooperative  purchase  and 
distribution  is  largely  developed,  and  to  a  certain  extent  you 
have  the  same  thing  among  your  own  Western  farmers.  This 
sort  of  cooperation  excludes  the  middleman.  It  stops  one  leak 
—  an  important  one.  But  it  stops  only  one,  and  I  want  you  to 
do  better  and  stop  all  leaks. 

I  tried  a  practical  experiment  myself  to  show  how  far  this 
could  be  done.  I  tried  to  stop  all  leaks,  and  to  have  all  pro- 
duce go  direct  to  the  consumer,  the  consumer  and  producer 
being  unified  by  common  interest,  so  that  there  should  be  no 


200  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

waste.  The  enterprise  went  wrong  for  one  very  simple  reason; 
bad  management,  which  could  not  keep  pace  with  the  rapid 
extension  of  business.  But  it  furnished  me  ample  proof  of  what 
could  be  done  by  good  management. 

By  good  management  on  strict,  severe  business  lines,  a  com- 
pany can  be  started  that  goes  in  for  production  and  distribution 
of  all  the  wants  and  commodities  of  life  without  waste.  It  can 
stop  all  leaks,  exclude  all  middlemen  whose  function  is  not 
really  necessary,  exclude  even  the  stockholder  who  draws  from 
the  concern  without  giving  of  his  effort  in  return,  who  sucks  the 
producer,  who  bleeds  the  business  and  weakens  its  growth. 
And  it  would  strive  to  keep  the  profits,  above  the  liberal  wages 
and  dividends  to  producers  and  consumers  implied  in  the  co- 
operative system,  within  the  business. 

I  say  all  wants  and  commodities  of  life.  This  is  much  in- 
deed, and  means  a  big  thing,  but  you  in  America  are  not  much 
afraid  of  big  things.  On  the  contrary,  I  should  be  ashamed  to 
come  before  you  with  a  mere  trifle.  Your  cooperative  business 
must  also  exclude  the  landlord  and  private  landowner,  who 
makes  indeed  a  terrible  leak  and  dangerous  waste,  especially 
in  America.  And  yet  you  must  take  care  that  the  feeling  of 
ownership  by  the  industrious  tenant  is  kept;  this  can  be 
done  by  withholding  the  sale  of  real  estate,  but  letting  it 
on  long  lease,  even  hereditary  lease,  under  such  conditions 
that  the  tenant  may  use  it  as  his  full  property  on  condition 
that  he  shall  not  abuse  his  rights  of  ownership.  I  have  quoted 
the  Rochdale  Pioneers  to  show  how  a  rich  forest  of  coopera- 
tion has  grown  from  an  acorn  planted  in  the  stern  soil  of  mod- 
ern industrialism.  And  now  shall  I  attempt  a  local  illustra- 
tion? Just  one,  and  only  an  illustration,  I  beg  you  to  under- 
stand. 

Here  I  am  told  there  are  three  or  four  hundred  thousand 
Italian  immigrants  banked  up  —  too  many  for  your  city's 
needs.  These  Italians  are  in  very  large  part  from  the  agricul- 
tural districts;  their  hereditary  status  is  agricultural.  Yet 
your  philanthropists  look  with  doubt  if  not  with  despair 
on  propositions  to  assist,  or  even  compel,  these  immi- 


TO  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MEN         201 

grants  to  pass  on  to  the  interior  of  your  vast  country  and 
there,  as  farmers,  assimilate  with  the  body  of  sound  American 
life. 

Well,  gentlemen,  I  have  talked  with  some  of  your  experts  on 
immigration  problems.  They  tell  me  the  Italian  will  not  go 
to  the  interior  because  he  gets  lonely  there;  because  he  misses 
his  religion,  his  gaiety,  his  friends,  and  because  he  cannot  under- 
stand the  social  customs  and  cannot  learn  the  American  farming 
methods  quickly  enough.  But  suppose  the  Italian  went  South 
or  West  or  right  out  here  into  New  York  state;  suppose  he  went 
not  as  a  lonely  individual,  nor  even  as  one  family,  but  went 
with  scores  of  his  kindred  to  a  farm  village,  such  as  he  remem- 
bers in  the  lovely  valleys  of  the  Apennines  or  on  the  Lombardy 
Plains  of  his  native  land.  And  suppose  he  went  so  capitalized 
by  5  per  cent,  philanthropists  that  he  could  spend  a  year 
learning,  and  would  have  the  incentive  of  early  proprietorship, 
under  perpetual  lease,  of  his  land.  Would  the  Italian  as  an 
American  settler  then  fail? 

He  would  not  fail,  I  am  sure.  And  he  is  clannish,  and  has 
already  many  of  the  instincts  of  the  cooperator;  he  could  apply 
such  principals  as  I  am  speaking  of  to  you;  he  could  realize  a 
better  form  of  society,  and  would  have  an  inestimable  advan- 
tage, of  an  immediate  sort,  in  his  competition  with  the  waste 
and  spoils  and  partial  anarchy  which  prevail  in  the  neighbour- 
hood to  which  he  can  go. 

This  example  I  have  quoted  as  an  illustration.  I  quote  it  to 
suggest  the  superiority  of  cooperation,  or  economic  socialism, 
over  your  present  social  machinery,  even  for  the  tackling  of 
recognized  and  pressing  problems  with  which  your  present 
machinery  is  confessedly  unable  to  cope. 

And  now  for  the  larger  plan.  For  the  sake  of  defmiteness  we 
will  call  it  here  "The  Cooperative  Company  of  America." 
Complete  theoretical  detail  can  be  had  by  anybody  who  is 
interested  —  detail  applied  to  America  as  far  as  my  own  ex- 
cessively limited  experience  with  America  goes.  I  will  divide 
the  plan  into  "Theory,"  "Practical  Problems,"  and  "Pro- 
posed Solutions." 


202  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

THE    COOPERATIVE    COMPANY   OF  AMERICA 

1.  Theory. 

To  provide  a  BUSINESS  whose  object  will  be  to  har- 
monize the  demands  of  producers  and  consumers 
and  to  eliminate  waste. 

To  increase  gradually  its  activities  and  scope  until 
it  takes  in  all  industries. 

To  make  this  business  economic  exclusively  —  entirely 
divorced  from  religious  or  political  entanglements. 

2.  Practical  Problems. 

1.  To  obtain  capital. 

2.  To  provide  wise,  intelligent,  and  able  direction  of 

the  company's  affairs. 

3.  To   insure   continuous  or  practically   continuous 

activity  and  employment  for  all  the  members. 

4.  To  arrange  for  an  indefinitely  extended  existence 

and  extension. 

3.  Proposed  Solutions. 

1.  Invite  capital  and  offer  inducements  for  its  co- 

operation and  use.  Offer  stock  and  pay  divi- 
dends —  the  larger  the  better  —  but  make  a  pro- 
vision that  the  stock  may  be  replaced  within  a 
limited  period  by  5  per  cent,  first  mortgage 
bonds,  in  an  amount  equal  to  the  book  value  of 
the  stock.  This  reduces  the  dividend  outgo 
and  loss  to  the  corporation  to  an  interest  ex- 
pense; and  a  sinking  fund  should  be  provided  to 
retire  the  bonds  ultimately  and  to  retain  the 
ownership  in  the  entire  property,  real  estate 
and  personal,  in  the  hands  of  the  workers, 
directive  as  well  as  productive. 

2.  Obtain   and    control   the   very   highest   order  of 

intelligence  and  skill,  professionally  and  me- 
chanically, and  the  very  best  directive  ability 
by  providing  the  opportunity  to  satisfy  am- 
bition, present  and  future,  and  then  to  satisfy 
as  to  remuneration.  If  rightly  conducted  the 


TO  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MEN         203 

organization  should  be  able  to  do  this  without 
difficulty. 

3.  (A)  Produce  the  various  commodities  and  offer 
the  production  by  improved  and  cooper- 
ative methods,  in  the  most  economical 
manner  and  of  the  finest  and  best  qual- 
ities —  i.  e.,  be  able  to  produce  for  less 
than  any  one  else. 

(B)  Cooperate  with  the  customer,  the  client. 
Share  profits  with  him,  retaining  only 
enough  to  insure  that  the  business  of  the 
organization  and  the  interests  of  its 
members  are  in  constantly  bettering  con- 
dition. To  be  unselfish  with  your  own 
organization  you  have  to  appeal  to  the 
selfish  interest  of  your  source  of  revenue 
—  your  customer. 

4  Provide  for  the  relinquishment  of  a  member's 
stock  on  the  severance  of  his  connection  with 
the  organization.  This  stock  to  be  purchased 
by  the  company  and  so  to  be  available  for 
new  members. 

So  much  for  the  outline.  I  leave  it  to  you  whether  there  is  a 
fundamental  error  or  an  essential  impracticability  in  it.  None 
has  been  pointed  out  to  me  yet,  and  I  have  discussed  the  plan 
with  some  of  the  best  business  men  in  America.  There  are  a 
few  concerns  in  America  working  along  such  lines  now,  and  they 
are  eminently  prosperous.  But  they  apply  the  principals  only 
in  a  special  branch.  The  great  strength  and  tremendous  pros- 
perity can  be  obtained  only  by  the  combination  of  various 
trades  and  agriculture,  gradually  established  and  extended  along 
the  lines  of  least  resistance.  The  margin  between  actual  cost 
and  retail  price  is  very  high  in  this  country;  rents  are  very  high; 
the  waste  of  leakage  in  the  form  of  divided  profits,  advertise- 

*Vide,  Appendix  I.  Also  Mr.  William  T.  Hoggson's  article,  "The  Co-productive 
Company  of  America, "  in  the  Survey,  September,  1909. 


204  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

ment  and  the  like  is  enormous;  and  an  intelligent  stoppage 
of  the  leaks,  foregoing  high  immediate  profits,  will  have  astonish- 
ing results. 

You  see,  if  you  call  my  philosophy  socialism,  you  must  at 
least  admit  that  it  is  a  socialism  that  pays.  And  at  this 
point  I  may  give  my  reasons  for  thinking  economic  action 
preferable  to  political  action,  and  for  believing  that  economic 
action  is  absolutely  necessary  in  addition  to  any  legislation,  if 
violent  antagonisms  are  to  be  avoided. 

The  simple  reason  is  that  legislation  implies  the  formation 
of  a  majority  and  the  compulsion  of  a  minority.  Now,  let  a 
better  social  organization  be  never  so  desirable,  never  so  possible, 
there  will  not  soon  be  won  over  a  majority  who  will  believe  in  it 
without  proof;  and  there  will  always  remain,  for  a  long  time 
to  come,  a  minority  who  will  prefer  the  old  private  freedom  with 
its  liberty  to  transgress  upon  the  freedom  of  others.  Legis- 
lation would  mean  compulsion  to  these  latter,  and  would  require 
a  majority  which  would  believe  without  proof  or  practice. 

Whereas  by  my  plan,  any  minority  may  try  and  test  its  opin- 
ions by  practice;  it  can  give  proof  and  example  without  com- 
pulsion, and  will  work  educationally  and  not  by  force.  On  the 
other  hand,  when,  later  on,  the  majority  has  been  won  over  to 
the  newer  system,  if  there  is  a  minority  which  prefers  the  old 
freebooter's  and  pirate's  freedom,  it  can  be  free  to  do  so,  and 
any  individual  may  be  free  to  abstain  from  cooperation  and  may 
fight  his  fight  single-handed.  All  this  is  impossible  if  reliance 
is  placed  entirely  or  primarily  on  legislative  methods. 

The  idea  at  once  occurs:  Why  has  not  a  system  that  will  pay 
so  well  been  tried  ere  now?  The  answer  is  simple:  Because  man- 
kind is  apt  to  look  more  for  immediate  private  gain  than  for 
indirect  advantage  in  the  long  run.  And  the  short-sightedness 
of  men  is  the  reason  why  so  many  measures,  as  for  example  the 
taking  of  small  profits  on  a  large  scale,  the  liberal  payment  of 
workers,  the  policy  of  interesting  them  in  the  business,  have  had 
to  wait  until  quite  recently  to  be  tried.  And  yet  they  have 
proved  eminently  profitable.  There  is  nothing  so  costly  as 
egoism,  and  nothing  pays  better  than  a  little  unselfishness. 


TO  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MEN          205 

For  the  rest,  most  of  the  objections  which  I  have  heard  raised 
have  grown  out  of  preconceived  and  utterly  erroneous  ideas 
of  what  was  really  wanted.  I  do  not  advise  equal  wages  for 
the  workers,  but  would  liberally  give  to  every  man  what  his 
labour  is  worth  in  the  labour  market.  I  do  not  propose  an  im- 
mediate entrance  of  the  workers  into  the  control  of  the  business, 
but  a  gradual  and  prudent  education  in  the  democratic  handling 
of  business.  I  do  not  advocate  any  kind  of  extreme,  but  a 
businesslike  procedure  along  American  lines,  and  this  includes 
everything  that  legitimate  business  legitimately  does  in  the  effort 
to  aggrandize  itself  —  with  only  this  difference,  that  the  profits 
will  be  kept  as  far  as  possible  within  the  business  and  used  for 
extension  and  for  the  common  good  of  all  those  who  are  engaged. 
I  want  no  sacrifice  of  the  incentive  toward  efficiency,  but  only  a 
combination  of  material  gain  with  moral  satisfaction,  and  the 
elimination  of  the  useless  and  superfluous.  Only  one  objection 
with  real  force  has  to  my  knowledge  been  raised;  it  is  that  such 
a  company,  after  becoming  prosperous,  would  be  tempted  to 
close  its  doors  and  to  cease  expanding.  This  has  to  be  antici- 
pated by  careful  rules  and  the  preservation  of  a  high  moral 
standard. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  should  wish  you  to  —  you  can,  if  you  will 
—  beat  all  the  great  cooperative  organizations  of  the  Old  World. 
The  other  day  I  got  a  letter  from  one  of  you,  a  great  business 
leader  in  this  country  and  a  very  wealthy  man.  He  said: 
"I  do  not  believe  that  you  will  ultimately  get  much  satisfaction 
as  the  result  of  your  effort  to  interest  rich  people  in  social  mat- 
ters worth  doing."  Thus  says  one  of  yourselves,  gentlemen. 
Yet  this  same  rich  man  offered  ten  thousand  dollars  toward 
this  plan  of  mine. 

Now  I  am  going  to  challenge  you.  What  this  man  said  has 
been  repeated  to  me  from  all  ranks,  especially  from  the  lower 
ranks.  "Don't  be  a  fool  or  expect  valuable  social  action  from 
wealthy  American  business  men."  But,  gentlemen,  I  want  to 
be  that  fool;  and  I  throw  the  challenge  in  your  face.  Are  you 
going  to  put  my  faith  to  shame?  Or  are  you  going  indeed  to 
start  a  great  and  magnificent  commercial  structure,  a  wonder 


206  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

and  astonishment  to  the  whole  world  and  a  blessing  and  source 
of  eternal  gratitude  to  posterity? 

That  is  my  challenge.  To  me  personally  it  is  all  the  same, 
for  I  should  have  no  interest  in  the  enterprise  beyond  the  pride 
of  having  contributed  a  little  toward  its  realization.  I  shall 
leave  the  work  entirely  to  you;  it  is  not  my  affair,  but  yours. 

But  to  you  it  is  everything.  It  is  your  opportunity  to  show 
whether  the  cynics  are  right  when  they  say  that  you  wealthy 
men  have  a  different  morale  from  other  human  beings,  a  class- 
morale  as  they  say;  that  your  only  satisfaction  lies  in  the  pleasure 
of  accumulation  and  the  power  of  possession,  and  in  nothing 
higher  or  better. 

That  is  what  these  dogmatists,  these  class-fighters,  these  fan- 
atics are  accustomed  to  say.  This  is  their  strength,  their 
power  to  make  the  dogmas  spread  lies  in  the  doctrine  that 
sooner  can  blood  be  drawn  from  a  stone  than  fundamentally 
beneficial  social  action  from  a  wealthy  business  man.  This  is 
the  doctrine  that  I  have  spent  twenty  years  in  the  effort  to 
combat. 

So,  gentlemen,  the  glove  falls  at  your  feet.  Will  you  smile 
at  it  scornfully  and  put  these  class-fighters  in  the  right? 

I  believe  not.  I  know,  for  sure,  that  all  of  you  have  more  or 
less  of  religious  sentiment.  You  want  to  be  religious  men,  you 
want  to  serve  God  in  your  own  way.  But  do  you  know  what 
is  the  true  and  only  test  of  whether  you  are  serving  God?  I 
will  tell  you.  The  test  is  the  inward,  deep  and  indubious 
feeling  of  the  sublime.  You  know  what  I  mean.  We  all  know 
what  this  feeling  means,  we  have  all  felt  some  glimmer  of  thai 
holy  sentiment. 

But  now  I  ask  you  again :  Have  you  ever  felt  that  sentiment 
of  the  sublime  in  your  daily  actions,  in  your  business  activity? 
If  not,  well,  then,  I  assure  you  that  you  have  not  been  serving 
God  with  a  conscience.  For  there  is  no  other  test;  and  this 
holy  sentiment  can  be  felt  and  ought  to  be  felt  in  all  human 
activity.  I  have  felt  it,  sometimes,  in  the  smallest  of  business 
matters,  because  I  have  known  in  large  manner  why  I  did  them. 
And  this  sentiment  is  so  precious  that  I  would  not  exchange 


TO  AMERICAN  BUSINESS  MEN         207 

it  for  all  your  millions,  no,  not  for  all  the  millions  you  could 
offer  together.  And  the  poorest  man  on  earth  I  deem  him  to 
be  who  never  felt  it. 

But  now  I  offer  you  a  chance  to  feel  that  sentiment,  and  with- 
out any  sacrifice.  You  need  not  lose,  you  need  not  give,  you 
may  keep  all  you  have.  I  propose  only  an  investment  of  a 
safe  and  sane  sort,  and  you  have  only  to  use  some  of  your  best 
business  ability  and  long  experience  to  set  this  enterprise  in 
motion  and  to  keep  it  straight  in  the  lines  of  a  higher  business 
morality. than  hitherto. 

And  then  you  will  feel  a  sentiment  of  the  sublime  going  along 
with  customary  business  actions,  and  you  will  feel  that  you  serve 
God  even  in  your  life  and  your  work  of  every  day.  And  why? 
Simply  because  you  will  be  doing  what  that  profoundly  relig- 
ious man,  the  founder  of  this  Republic,  George  Washington, 
urged  you  to  do.  And 'when  you  pass  the  triumphal  arch  at 
Washington  Place  and  look  up  at  the  words  carved  thereon 
they  will  flame  on  you  with  a  new  meaning.  And  you  will 
perceive  what  in  business  is  possible  and  is  needed:  to  raise  a 
standard  to  which  the  wise  and  honest  may  repair. 

And  then  also,  gentlemen,  I  trust  that  we  may  add  that  the 
event  lies  in  the  hand  of  God. 


CHAPTER  V 

A   LAY  SERMON   ON  THE    PLAIN WHAT   I   WOULD    SAY 

TO    THE    AVERAGE    AMERICAN    READER 

I  AM  impressed  very  strongly,  dear  American 
reader,  with  the  notion  that  you  do  not  like 
deliberation  —  at  least  not  in  abstractions.  You 
want  hard  facts,  something  concrete  and  tangible, 
and  you  have  no  time  for  dreams  and  reflective 
musings. 

Very  well,  but  what  are  you  in  such  a  hurry  for? 
For  your  own  happiness?  Not  so;  for  Happy 
Humanity,  if  you  please,  though  you  may  not  be 
aware  of  it  yourself.  All  of  you,  business  men, 
statesmen,  men  of  science,  you  are  working  for 
something  beyond  the  individual,  though  most  of  you 
work  under  the  delusion  that  it  is  personal  happiness 
which  is  your  aim.  But  think  of  the  absurdity  of 
working  and  worrying  until  your  last  breath  for 
something  that  slips  off  with  that  very  same  last 
breath!  People  say  you  care  mainly  for  dollars. 
Nonsense!  it  is  the  fun  of  the  game  you  care  for. 
But  what  makes  you  enjoy  the  game?  Instinct,  in- 
born qualities,  driving  you  on,  whether  you  are 
aware  of  it  or  not,  to  accomplish  something  be- 

208 


A  LAY  SERMON  209 

yond  yourself,  something  for  the  benefit  of  Happy 
Humanity.  It  is  the  bee's  fun  to  make  honey  — 
but  not  for  himself.  He  will  never  taste  what  he 
gathers.  He  works  for  the  race,  like  you. 

Sometimes  you  call  it  "Progress";  lately  you  have 
been  talking  of  "Evolution."  It  all  comes  to  the 
same  thing.  It  is  some  grand,  glorious  Future, 
worth  living  for  and  dying  for.  Call  it  the  mil- 
lennium if  you  like,  call  it  the  Kingdom  of  God? 
though  this  is  said  to  be  "not  of  this  world."  The 
American  Kingdom  of  God  must  have  some  con- 
nection with  this  world,  I  am  sure.  And  so  must 
Happy  Humanity. 

But  leave  the  goal  aside.  What  is  material  to  us 
is  that  the  road  to  that  great  Future  is  momentarily 
blocked.  And  when  there  is  a  thick  block  in  London 
City  the  policeman  raises  his  hand  and  you  have 
to  wait.  You  may  either  swear,  or  joke,  or  meditate, 
but  you  have  to  wait.  Hurry  would  not  do. 

Every  entanglement  demands  some  deliberation. 
Sherlock  Holmes,  before  a  very  dark  puzzle,  sits 
down,  lights  his  pipe,  and  muses.  It's  no  use  going 
ahead.  It  would  be  dangerous  and  ruinous. 

And  yet  this  is  what  America  is  doing.  It  is 
pushing  on  frantically  in  a  blocked  road.  I  will  show 
you  the  fitness  of  this  metaphor.  It  is  appallingly 
true. 

There  are  a  hundred  remarkable  features  of  our 
present  social  condition,  all  denoting  the  same  thing. 


210  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

They  all  show  absurdity,  inner  contradiction,  the 
result  of  confusion.  If  you  will  have  a  little  patience 
and  follow  my  story,  I  will  give  you  instances. 

What  do  you  think,  to  begin  with,  of  starvation 
as  the  result  of  over-production!  Charming,  isn't 
it?  Most  delicious. 

But  this  is  rather  hackneyed.  Another  less  con- 
spicuous absurdity  is  the  wickedness  of  philanthropy 
-  terrible  thing  when  you  come  to  realize  it.  It 
makes  one's  head  reel  and  one's  fingers  tingle.  When 
we  try  to  be  very  good,  exceptionally  good,  Christ- 
like,  then  we  are  sure  to  do  more  harm  than  in  any 
other  way.  It  is  the  one  reproach  I  have  been  used 
to  hear  since  I  tried  to  mend  my  life  and  do  some- 
thing for  mankind,  the  one  bitter,  scathing,  scornful 
reproach  —  and  alas !  how  well  deserved  —  that  I 
was  too  philanthropic.  Philanthropy  —  the  word 
intended  to  mean  "love  of  mankind!"  —  now  de- 
notes a  vice,  and  a  philanthropist  is  a  dangerous  and 
harmful  individual.  Every  business  man  knows 
that  philanthropy  in  business  is  wrong.  It  engenders 
all  sorts  of  evil,  laziness,  corruption,  deceit.  It 
brings  ruin  and  disorder.  It  slackens  progress.  The 
business  man  is  quite  right.  He  has  to  be  clever 
and  hard,  not  philanthropic. 

But  here  again  I  come  into  confusion:  is  not 
all  human  activity  business?  And  how  can  any- 
thing be  wrong  in  business  and  right  outside  of  it? 

Philanthropy  in  our  days,  at  least  the  usual  com- 


A  LAY  SERMON  211 

monplace  form  of  it,  is  never  right.  It  is  always 
pernicious.  It  is  like  covering  up  dirty  wounds  with 
sweet  paste.  It  is  like  the  tenderness  of  a  careless 
mother  who  leaves  her  baby  alone  with  a  pincushion, 
and  when  the  pin  is  well  sticking  in  baby's  throat 
and  the  poor  thing  crying  for  mercy,  soothes  it  and 
hugs  it  and  gives  it  sweets,  and  never  looks  for  the 
pin.  It  is  like  perfuming  instead  of  washing.  It  is 
like  burning  incense  in  a  stinking  room  instead  of 
cleaning  it  up  and  opening  the  windows.  It  is  to 
society  what  a  deep  drink  is  to  the  miserable  poor. 
It  is  a  highly  anti-social  indulgence  in  the  gratifica- 
tion of  personal  sentiment. 

Philanthropy  is  a  social  narcotic,  dulling  society's 
pains,  giving  illusions  and  visions  of  goodness  and 
generosity,  of  charity  and  gratitude,  where  there  is 
really  nothing  but  injustice,  sentimentality,  servility, 
humiliation,  and  hypocrisy.  And  yet  Christ  taught 
us  to  be  liberal  to  the  poor,  and  to  be  charitable. 
True,  but  He  did  not  teach  us  to  be  liberal  to  the  poor 
of  our  own  making.  Nor  did  He  teach  us  to  be 
charitable  at  the  cost  of  others. 

There  is  no  good  in  commonplace  philanthropy, 
because  it  is  unjust,  unwise,  and  misleading. 

There  is  no  good  in  giving  alms,  because  it  makes 
people  look  for  alms. 

There  is  no  good  in  bread-lines,  because  it  creates 
the  bread-line  loafer. 

There  is  no  good  in  making  city  slum  life  attractive 


212  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

or  tolerable,  because  it  will  attract  people  to  the 
cities  who  ought  not  to  be  there. 

It  is  exasperating  to  see  the  waste  of  millions  of 
dollars,  the  waste  of  high-minded  effort,  of  noble 
self-denial  even,  in  a  struggle  that  makes  the  confu- 
sion only  worse. 

While  I  was  looking  for  the  root  of  the  evil,  thor- 
oughly disposed  to  apply  the  axe  there  when  I  should 
have  found  it,  I  failed  because  I  was  too  philan- 
thropic. I  had  not  the  hardness,  the  sharpness  of 
the  business  men.  I  indulged  too  much  in  personal 
sentiment. 

In  the  first  place,  I  was  not  careful  enough  in  my 
selection  of  the  men  who  were  to  help  me.  This  was 
my  first  important  blunder,  the  principal  cause  of 
my  failure,  a  mistake  which  I  shall  most  rigorously 
guard  against  in  my  next  experiment. 

Let  us  look  at  the  problem  in  the  clearest,  simplest 
form.  I  wanted  to  live  as  a  socialist,  as  a  social 
being,  as  a  comrade  among  comrades.  The  rules  of 
such  a  life  are  nothing  but:  "Do  not  cheat  your 
fellow  man.  Do  not  keep  him  away  from  the  sources 
of  wealth,  in  order  to  dominate  and  exploit  him." 
Nobody,  nobody  I  ever  met,  dared  to  object  openly 
to  these  rules.  This  shows  that  they  belong  to  true 
human  nature,  and  are  universal.  They  are  the 
only  way  to  Happy  Humanity.  But  how  can  any 
man,  nowadays,  be  sure  that  he  does  not  deceive 
his  fellow  man,  or  dominate  him?  For  if  he  is  not 


A  LAY  SERMON  213 

doing  it  consciously  and  on  purpose,  he  is  doing  it 
by  proxy. 

When  I  put  my  money  in  a  bank,  the  bank  is 
handling  it  in  some  way  I  do  not  know.  Yet  it  is 
my  money  and  my  responsibility.  If  I  give  it  to  a 
broker  and  let  him  buy  and  sell,  he  will  enrich  me, 
at  the  cost  of  others,  or  make  me  lose,  to  the  profit 
of  others;  but  all  with  my  responsibility.  If  I  buy 
and  sell,  or  let  others  buy  and  sell  for  me,  I  am  always 
trying  to  cheat  somebody  out  of  his  money.  It  is 
done  for  me,  to  my  profit  or  my  loss,  and  I  share  the 
responsibility. 

Whatever  occupation  I  have,  I  get  my  money, 
and  by  means  of  it  the  necessities  of  life,  through 
the  hands  of  others,  and  I  do  not  know  whether  they 
keep  the  rules  of  humanity.  They  may  cheat  and 
gamble  and  exploit.  And  I  have  to  live  by  the 
money  or,  in  other  words,  by  the  power  which  I  get 
from  them.  I  share  the  profits  of  their  activity,  but 
also  I  share  the  responsibility  of  their  misdoings.  I 
may  be  the  most  useful,  the  most  disinterested,  the 
most  generous  of  men;  I  get  my  money  —  that  is, 
my  power  —  from  unclean  sources  and  I  participate 
therefore  in  the  most  objectionable  practices. 

As  a  poet  or  an  artist  I  may  get  a  high  price  for 
my  creations,  and  I  may  feel  the  satisfaction  of  living 
by  honourable  means.  But  this  is  very  likely  a 
delusion.  For  my  books  and  paintings  may  be 
bought  by  swindlers  and  gamblers  and  oppressors. 


214  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

They  pay  those  high  prices  out  of  their  ill-gotten 
power;  they  make  me  their  accomplice  by  making 
me  use  that  power  to  my  benefit. 

The  clothes  I  wear  may  be  made  by  poor,  under- 
paid workmen;  the  bread  I  eat  may  come  from  the 
harvests  stolen  from  starving  Asiatic  natives  or 
Russian  peasants.  All  the  work  necessary  to  keep 
me  alive  in  comfort  may  be  underpaid,  wrung  out 
of  miserable  serfs  or  wage-slaves  somewhere  on  the 
globe.  I  do  not  know,  I  do  not  care,  and  yet  I  share 
the  dreadful  responsibility  by  profiting  by  it.  There 
is  no  escape  from  this  burden  —  not  for  the  moder- 
ately paid  professor,  nor  for  the  better  remunerated 
statesman,  minister,  lawyer,  or  doctor. 

Some  will  say:  "I  neither  get  nor  spend  more 
than  is  my  due."  But  who  knows  what  is  "  his  due  "  ? 
Who  can  say  what  a  man's  activity  is  worth?  It  is 
worth  what  he  can  get  for  it.  In  this  age  of  con- 
fusion a  man  may  get  millions  for  the  most  useless, 
base,  and  pernicious  activity.  And  any  rich,  danger- 
ous scoundrel  may  direct  all  our  activities  by  the 
power  of  his  money  and  make  us  his  accomplices 
and  his  lackeys,  simply  by  buying  whatever  work 
we  have  to  sell. 

Stop!  Here  we  are  in  the  middle  of  the  block. 
Confusion  right  and  left!  Voices  rising  in  all  direc- 
tions out  of  the  muddle  —  "I  am  not  a  swindler!" 
"I  am  an  honest  worker!"  "I  am  useful!"  "I  do 
not  speculate!"  "I  do  not  gamble!"  "I  gained 


A  LAY  SERMON  215 

my  money  by  hard  work!"  "I  am  paid  for  good 
service!"  "I  give  large  sums  to  educational  pur- 
poses!" "I  am  a  Christian!"  "And  how  do  you 
live,  if  you  please?"  "And  what  do  you  propose 
then?" 

This  chorus  of  indignation  shows  clearly  that  these 
people  are  all  socialists,  and  want  to  keep  the  social- 
istic rules.  Even  the  doubt  of  their  integrity  irri- 
tates them.  They  all  want  to  be  honest,  useful,  and 
to  get  nothing  more  than  their  due.  So  do  I;  but  I 
know,  what  they  don't  seem  to  perceive,  that  there 
is  not  the  faintest  possibility  of  an  approximately 
fair  valuation  of  our  activity.  We  get  what  we  can, 
by  means  fair  or  foul.  And  our  fair  means  are  only 
apparently  fair.  We  are  doing  our  foul  deeds  by 
proxy.  We  let  them  be  done  by  others  in  such  a  way 
that  it  seems  as  if  nobody  were  to  blame. 

The  managers  do  their  duty,  raising  the  dividends; 
the  brokers  do  their  duty,  buying  and  selling  to  your 
advantage;  you  do  your  duty,  taking  care  of  the 
fortune  of  your  family.  Everything  is  for  duty! 
Duty  and  honesty  all  round  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
reach. 

On  the  top  of  the  rock  of  social  structure,  in  the 
broad  sunlight  of  justice,  you  dine  with  your  family, 
a  happy,  innocent  crowd.  Those  who  are  crushed 
underneath,  you  don't  perceive.  Yet  it  is  your 
weight  as  much  as  anything  else  that  crushes  them. 
Meanwhile  you  are  radiating  Christian  virtues, 


216  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

loving  your  enemies.  .  .  .  This  is  the  ugly  part 
of  it. 

In  saying  such  things  as  I  am  saying  now,  one 
always  irritates  people,  because  they  take  it  as  a 
reproach.  They  look  at  you  as  if  you  were  teaching 
them  morals  from  a  sinless  altitude.  But,  with  your 
leave,  dear  American  readers,  it  is  not  my  moral 
code,  but  yours,  that  you  are  violating.  I  don't  talk 
of  "loving  my  enemies."  I  very  rarely  go  to  church 
and  I  never  call  myself  a  Christian.  But  you  do. 

I  cannot  blame  any  man  because  he  lives  on  the 
booty  of  the  swindlers.  We  all  have  to  do  it.  We 
all  have  to  share  the  responsibility  of  the  social  evils. 
We  all  sit  on  the  rock  crushing  the  weak  and  the 
poor.  But  you  cannot  blame  me  for  smiling  at  your 
" Christian  virtues,"  can  you? 

Christian  virtues,  however,  we  may  safely  put  off 
till  the  millennium.  Happy  Humanity  will  grow 
them  —  not  we. 

I  think  it  is  pardonable  at  this  moment  to  allow 
swindling,  cheating,  extortion,  exploitation  of  the 
poor  to  go  on  with  our  sanction  and  to  our  benefit. 
We  are  all  practising  the  evil,  no  class  excepted.  All 
classes  are  scrambling  for  the  top  of  the  rock,  rich 
and  poor  alike.  They  are  all  afraid  of  being  crushed. 
The  eagerness,  the  unscrupulous  rush  for  money  and 
power,  is  equally  strong  among  the  lowest  and  the 
highest.  It  is  strongest  among  those  who  are  in  the 
way  of  transition  from  the  bottom  to  the  top.  All 


A  LAY  SERMON  217 

try  to  get  as  much  as  possible,  as  soon  as  possible, 
in  any  way  possible. 

But  what  I  think  unpardonable,  and  very,  very 
objectionable  indeed,  is  to  profess,  at  the  very  time 
that  you  are  trampling  down  your  rivals,  such  im- 
possible virtues  as  loving  your  enemies,  and  pre- 
tending that  you  agree  with  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount..  This  is  the  worst  obstruction  in  the  block, 
the  thick  of  the  muddle.  How  can  we  ever  join  in 
an  honest  effort  for  a  higher  moral  standard  of 
society  so  long  as  we  practise  the  hypocrisy  of  con- 
fessing a  creed  of  such  unattainable  loftiness? 

No,  I  am  not  getting  my  livelihood  in  a  better  way 
than  you.  I  too  am  profiting  by  the  booty  of  the 
swindler;  I  am  crushing  the  poor  under  my  weight; 
I  am  living  at  the  cost  of  the  weak.  I  tried  to 
escape,  but  it  is  no  good. 

But,  indeed,  I  have  something  to  propose,  if  you 
will  kindly  listen.  But  the  exasperating  thing  is 
that  although  I  have  told  it  over  and  over  again, 
and  although  it  is  so  simple,  so  clear,  so  obvious  that 
I  never  found  a  man  who  could  bring  a  plausible 
argument  against  it,  and  although  they  have  all  said, 
"Of  course,  but—  — , "  they  have  nevertheless  all 
stopped  and  turned  the  other  way  —  their  own  way. 

I  proposed  that  those  of  us  who  really  want  to  live 
without  cheating  our  neighbours  and  without  monop- 
olizing the  sources  of  wealth  should  join  and  work 
together,  and  try  to  find  our  livelihood  by  our  own 


218  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

work  and  mutual  aid,  until  all  our  needs  should  be 
supplied  by  ourselves  and  our  comrades,  under  just 
and  fair  conditions;  and  cheating,  swindling,  extor- 
tion, and  deceit  should  be  entirely  eliminated  from 
our  group.  I  proposed  to  the  labourer,  the  honest 
worker,  who  is  complaining  and  envious  of  the  idle 
rich,  that  he  should  work  only  for  those  who  work 
for  him,  leaving  the  idle  rich  alone. 

"Of  course!  of  course!  that's  it!  —  that's  very 
fine,"  they  say.  And  then  all  those  enemy-lovers 
and  those  caring-for-their-neighbours-as-for-them- 
selves  altruists,  and  those  hungry-and-thirsty-for- 
justice  judges,  and  those  fervent  upholders  of  fair 
play  and  equity,  those  advocates  of  peace  in  the 
world,  those  followers  of  the  prophet  of  meekness 
and  humbleness,  those  every-Sunday-praying-for- 
the-Kingdom-of-God  enthusiasts  —  they  turned  on 
their  heels  and  went  to  their  business,  to  fight 
for  their  families,  at  the  cost  of  their  neighbours' 
families.  Fighting  for  as  much  as  possible,  as  soon 
as  possible,  in  any  way  possible,  or,  to  be  accurate, 
in  any  safe  way  possible. 

This  is  so  extremely  exasperating,  because  it  is  so 
absurd.  Why  in  the  world  is  a  thing,  so  reasonable 
as  my  proposal,  not  done  and  carried  through  long 
ago?  Nobody  could  explain  it  to  me.  They  said: 
"It  has  been  tried  and  always  failed." 

Now,  this  is  not  at  all  a  convincing  argument. 
Steamboats  had  been  tried  and  always  failed  before 


A  LAY  SERMON  219 

Fulton.     Railways  had  been  tried  and  always  failed 
before    George    Stephenson.      Airships    and    aero- 
planes had  been  tried  and  always  failed  before  Zep- 
\    pelin  and  Wright. 

\  Are  all  these  millions  of  Christ-adorers  not  able 
to  bring  about  something  so  fundamentally  desir- 
able according  to  their  creed? 

Besides,  their  argument  is  not  true.  I  know  the 
history  of  about  two  hundred  little  groups,  in  Europe 
and  in  America,  which  started  with  somewhat  the 
same  idea.  They  were  not  all  failures.  About  half 
of  them  showed  clearly  that  there  was  nothing  es- 
sentially impossible  in  the  idea. 

Why  is  not  at  least  one  third  of  the  civilized  world 
energetically  busy  trying  to  realize  a  thing  so  fine  and 
so  necessary  that  it  ought  to  come  before  all  our 
other  activities?  Nobody  could  explain  it.  I  know 
now  the  reason.  But  the  whole  thing  is  so  wonder- 
fully, so  miraculously  absurd  that  I  cannot  help 
feeling  still  a  little  exasperated  when  I  see  you 
Americans  rush  and  push  and  crush,  and  nobody 
seeming  to  perceive  what  ought  to  be  done  first  of  all. 

"You  are  naive,"  said  the  Hollanders.  "The 
world  is  too  wicked."  The  result  of  the  latest  poll 
in  Holland  shows  that  at  least  two  thirds  of  these 
Hollanders  are  believers  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
At  least  two  thirds  are  praying  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  every  Sunday  and  doing  their  best  to  keep 
the  world  wicked  the  six  other  days.  It  ought  to 


220  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

be  wicked,  you  know,  because  it's  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures. 

"You  are  a  bourgeois-idealist,"  said  the  Marxist 
social-democrats.  This  label  is  on  annulment  of  all 
argument.  It  wipes  you  out.  After  this  you  may 
go  "pipen  in  an  ivy-leaf,"  as  Father  Chaucer  used 
to  say. 

The  Marxists  are  no  idealists.  They  too  have  their 
Holy  Scripture,  which  is  the  most  ingenuously  elabor- 
ate tissue  of  abstruse  nonsense  ever  written.  They 
believe  in  class-war,  historic  materialism,  and  in  the 
scientific  valuation  of  human  activity  by  the 
measure  of  time.  This  dogma  is  just  as  inscrutable 
to  the  outsider  and  as  clear  to  the  adept  as  the 
dogma  of  predestination.  But  though  it  is  beyond 
human  understanding,  there  are  thousands  of  poor- 
in-spirit  who  believe  in  it,  through  grace,  quia 
absurdum. 

But  the  Marxists  are  a  strong  and  restlessly  active 
body.  They  spend  thousands  of  dollars  and  tremen- 
dous amounts  of  energy  in  getting  their  dogmas 
accepted  and  their  candidates  elected.  And  they 
succeed  because  they  know  how  to  use  the  important 
forces  of  authority  and  discipline  exactly  as  the  church 
does.  They  use  the  authority  of  a  doctrine  and  the 
discipline  of  a  party.  And  they  bring  into  service 
that  important  quality  of  men  that  we  lately  learned 
to  call  suggestibility,  and  that  other,  called  gre- 
gariousness,  that  makes  them  run  with  the  crowd. 


A  LAY  SERMON  221 

In  my  efforts  to  spread  my  doctrine  of  co-produc- 
tion, I  had  failed  to  take  these  qualities  into  account, 
and  that  is  the  reason  I  was  so  much  puzzled  at  the 
general  inertia  with  regard  to  my  simple  and  reason- 
able proposal. 

No  proposal,  however  obviously  excellent  and 
necessary,  will  find  followers  by  the  mere  force  of 
its  reasonableness.  There  must  be  some  authorita- 
tive pushing  man  behind.  No  ordinary  man  will  be 
drawn  out  of  the  sphere  of  his  own  activity  by  the 
force  of  reason  alone.  He  wants  some  exceptionally 
strong  influence  to  push  him,  or  some  general  cur- 
rent to  draw  him.  He  may  suppose  he  always  acts 
rationally;  the  truth  is  that  he  is  always  following 
irrational  impulses  of  suggestion  or  belief.  And 
because  nobody  is  very  acutely  conscious  of  this 
peculiarity  himself,  nobody  could  explain  what 
seemed  such  a  puzzle  to  me. 

Now  I  know  that  if  I  wished  to  make  people  move, 
I  ought  to  have  pushed  them,  and  to  have  used  dis- 
cipline and  authority.  I  was  not  only  too  much  of  a 
philanthropist  in  my  first  experiment,  I  was  also 
too  much  of  an  anarchist.  I  made  my  proposal,  met 
with  no  argument  of  any  value  against  it,  and  con- 
sequently waited  till  people  came  to  join  me.  And 
when  some  came  I  supposed  that  they  had  rightly 
understood  me,  and  would  know  what  they  were 
about  and  would  do  what  was  wanted  without  my 
selecting  them  or  commanding  or  pushing  them. 


222  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

I  see  the  business  men  among  my  readers  smile. 
They  can  exactly  foretell  the  sequel  of  my  story. 
This  sort  of  proceeding  can  only  lead  to  inefficiency, 
quarrelling,  disorder,  loss  of  money,  bankruptcy, 
general  distrust,  and  disappointment.  Quite  so, 
gentlemen;  you  are  right.  This  was  the  sequel. 
But  you  have  no  right  to  blame  me  or  to  smile. 
It  was  that  counfounded  "love-your-enemy"  and 
"  give-good-for-evil "  talk  of  yours  that  was  to 
blame.  It  was  your  cant  about  Brotherhood  and 
Humility  and  other  Christian  virtues. 

I  was  an  artist  and  a  man  of  science.  How  could 
I  realize,  without  learning  it  by  hard  experience,  that 
these  Christian  virtues,  on  which  our  whole  civilized 
society  is  said  to  be  based,  are  at  this  moment  en- 
tirely worthless  and  pernicious  when  it  comes  to 
actual  doings  and  -facts?  How  could  I  suppose, 
without  having  it  rubbed  in  roughly,  that  you, 
though  knowing  all  this,  would  be  so  devilishly  ab- 
surd as  to  go  on  confessing  and  preaching  these  vir- 
tues every  seventh  day? 

And  here  I  have  struck  another  confusion,  not  yet 
mentioned  before,  the  confusion  about  anarchism. 

The  cartoons  of  Punch  represent  anarchy  as  an 
unpleasant  sort  of  female  lunatic  in  disorderly  dress, 
with  snakes  for  hair,  a  bloody  dagger  in  one  hand, 
the  torch  of  destruction  in  the  other,  and  a  very 
black  background  of  smoke,  thunderclouds,  and 
ruins  behind.  I  suppose  this  belongs  to  the  excep- 


A  LAY  SERMON  223 

tional  things  that  Americans  like  in  Punch.  Proud- 
hon,  one  of  the  first  upholders  of  anarchistic  philoso- 
phy, said:  "/'  anarchie,  c'est  I'ordre!"  Not  so  bad 
this  either,  in  the  way  of  confusion,  I  should  say! 

Now  let  me  show  you  how  easily  this  knot  may  be 
unravelled.     Anarchy  means  absence  of  authority  - 
but  not  of  all  authority,  only  human  authority. 

It  is  true  that  the  anarchists  of  the  last  century 
said:  "Ni  Dieu,  ni  maitre!"  But  they  never 
added  "ni  Verite"  And  we  must  remember  that 
in  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  the  ideas  Truth 
or  Reason  were  often  used  when  people  wanted 
to  speak  of  God.  Indeed,  anarchistic  philosophy 
never  meant  anything  else  than  to  proclaim  the 
exclusive  authority  of  Reason  or  Truth,  which  we 
may  thus  interpret:  "No  man  another  man's  mas- 
ter, but  all  men  obedient  to  one  higher  authority." 
Tolstoy  says,  "to  the  authority  of  God  and  Jesus." 
That  other  great  Russian,  Kropotkin,  his  fellow 
apostle  of  anarchism,  says,  "to  that  of  Truth,  Rea- 
son, and  Science."  According  to  my  view  the  two 
are  not  so  far  apart. 

No  human  authority,  only  the  Divine  authority  of 

Truth. 
No  man  another  man's  master,  all  obedient  children 

of  one  God. 

This  is  the  true  anarchistic  Ideal  as  understood,  to 
mention  only  one  name,  by  a  poet  like  Shelley. 


224  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Now  I  should  like  to  ask  you,  American  readers, 
declared  adorers  of  the  Prophet  who  said  that  no 
man  can  serve  two  masters,  you  who  call  yourselves 
democrats  and  who  have  shed  torrents  of  blood  to 
abolish  the  mastership  of  man  over  man,  what  your 
objection  is  to  this  Ideal? 

/  have  an  objection,  which  I  will  tell  you. 

I  have  found  by  personal  experience,  by  a  practical 
test,  that  ordinary  humans  of  the  present  day,  when 
you  set  them  free  from  human  authority,  run  wild. 
They  begin  by  doing  what  they  like,  which  is  very 
rarely  what  you  like;  then  they  take  from  you  what 
they  can,  and  when  you  object  to  being  fleeced  en- 
\  tirely,  they  call  you  a  despot. 

I  have  also  observed  that,  when  you  tell  people  to 

/      disregard  all  human  authority  and  to  trust  only  to 

Higher  Authority,  they  turn  crazy.     If  you  call  that 

Higher  Authority  Jesus  or  God,  they  generally  be- 

\    come  impossible  and  ridiculous  —  monks,  ascetics, 

\or  cranks;  if  you  call  it  Truth,  Reason,  or  Science, 

then  they  blow  you  up. 

This  is  my  objection.  But  you  see,  I  never  pre- 
tended to  be  a  Christian  like  you,  American  reader! 
I  never  declared  solemnly,  as  you  do  or  as  you  ought 
to  do  every  Sunday,  my  willingness  to  offer  my  right 
cheek  when  beaten  on  my  left.  If  I  were  a  Christian, 
my  objection  would  be  inconsistent.  I  should  have 
to  let  myself  be  fleeced  and  blown  up  meekly.  And 
to  the  only  man  of  our  time  who  has  been,  to  my 


A  LAY  SERMON  225 

knowledge,  something  like  an  approach  to  a  real 
Christian,  the  venerable  Tolstoy,  this  was  no  ob- 
jection. Also  my  excellent  friend  Kropotkin,  that 
gentlest  of  gentlemen,  seems  to  put  such  an  unlimited 
trust  in  the  power  of  Divine  Authority  that  he 
would  run  the  risk  of  letting  all  mankind  loose,  sure 
that  no  pandemonium  would  ensue  and  that  all 
would  turn  to  order  and  discipline  by  itself. 

It  was  the  opinion  of  these  philosophers  that 
anarchy,  though  it  resulted  in  quarrels  and  disorder 
when  tried  by  a  few  score  of  men,  would  neverthe- 
less lead  to  supreme  peace  and  harmony  when  the 
whole  of  Humanity  tried  it  all  at  once.  This  ap- 
pears to  me  like  saying  that,  though  a  jump  from  the 
first  floor  window  might  result  in  disaster,  a  jump 
from  the  top  of  the  Singer  Building  would  be  quite 
safe,  because  we  should  grow  wings  on  the  way.  It's 
only  a  question  of  daring.  Or  this  —  that  if  a  trio 
or  quartette  of  unskilled  musicians  was  not  a  success, 
this  was  no  proof  that  a  full  orchestra  of  them  would 
not  be  harmonious. 

Now,  musical  people  will  understand  me  when  I 
say  that  I  consider  a  rendition  by  a  string  quar- 
tette or  quintette  among  the  highest,  most  perfect  of 
musical  performances,  provided  the  performers  are 
masters  on  their  instruments.  Then  they  need  no 
leader,  no  authority.  Music  is  their  authority,  Har- 
mony and  Rhythm  are  their  leaders,  Divine  Beauty  is 
their  master.  This  is  an  instance  of  ideal  anarchism. 


226  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

But  a  full  orchestra,  where  all  the  performers  are 
not  great  masters,  needs  a  leader,  and  a  good  one. 
On  the  power  of  his  strict  discipline  depends  the 
beauty  and  harmony  of  the  whole.  His  personality 
commands  and  pervades  the  performance. 

I  agree,  however,  that,  if  we  could  imagine  a 
great  chorus,  or  a  great  orchestra,  entirely  com- 
posed of  artists  so  great  that  they  would  need 
no  leader  at  all  —  this  orchestra  would  surely  form 
the  most  perfect  Harmony  and  achieve  the  Highest 
Beauty. 

Now  I  have  good  reasons  for  my  opinion  that,  in 
the  field  of  practical  activity,  there  are  still  very  few 
consummate  artists  among  men.  From  which  it  is 
clear  to  me  that  they  do  want,  for  a  long  while  to 
come,  strong  and  strict  leaders  who  know  how  to 
keep  discipline.  They  want  Human  Authority,  like 
the  people  of  Israel,  to  whom  was  given  a  king, 
because  of  their  sins. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  realizing  that  human 
nature  is  essentially  plastic  and  Humanity  not  yet 
full  grown,  I  see  no  reason  to  deny  beforehand  the 
possibility  of  some  better  arrangement.  Men  may 
become  some  day  all  perfect  players  in  the  orchestra 
of  Life;  they  may  all  grow  to  have  the  same  delicate 
sense  of  rhythm  and  harmony  and  the  same  perfect 
obedience  to  One  Divine  Authority.  That  would 
mean  that  all  grown-up  individuals  were  of  age  in  a 
broader  sense  than  merely  in  years  —  it  would  mean 


A  LAY  SERMON  227 

that  Mankind  had  outgrown  its  infancy,  that  Happy 
Humanity  was  attained. 

My  idea  about  Ideal  Anarchy,  therefore,  is  to  post- 
pone it  till  the  millennium.  Here  the  American 
reader  and  I  agree,  I  suppose.  But  with  a  difference. 

In  the  American  vernacular  "till  the  millennium" 
is  tantamount  to  ad  kalendas  Grcecas,  which  seems 
to  imply  a  very  unchristian  doubt  of  what  is  so 
decidedly  predicted  by  the  founder  of  Christianity. 
I  fear  that  from  your  lips  the  phrase  would  mean  the 
eternal  continuation  of  an  enslaved  and  confused 
mankind,  which  would  go  once  a  week  into  special 
buildings  called  churches,  for  the  purpose  of  indulg- 
ing in  the  illusion  of  future  Liberation.  It  would 
mean  the  everlasting  absurdity  of  a  Society  toiling 
under  the  whip  of  envy  and  greed,  wearing  for  six 
days  the  convict  dress,  with  its  shameful  marks  of 
deceit  and  malice  —  and  donning  on  Sundays  the 
borrowed  angel-garb  of  brotherly  love,  justice,  and 
boundless  gentleness. 

To  me  the  words  mean  a  glorious  promise,  for 
which  I  am  willing  to  give  the  best  of  my  life,  though 
I  shall  never  see  the  realization  of  it  with  these  eyes 
of  mine.  For  though  I  do  not  at  all  pretend  to  be  a 
Christian,  and  though  I  do  not  believe  in  the  ap- 
propriateness of  Christian  virtues  at  this  time,  I 
believe  most  certainly  in  their  gradual  growth,  and 
in  their  future  perfection.  And  however  "naive" 
or  "bourgeois-idealistic"  it  may  be  called,  I  dare  to 


228  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

believe  in  the  millennium,  in  the  coming  of  age 
of  mankind,  in  his  final  Liberation  —  in  Happy 
Humanity. 

I  believe  in  a  Golden  Age,  as  it  has  been  vaguely 
forefelt  by  the  Ancients,  the  Golden  Age  of  the 
Future,  Virgil's  Saturnia  Regna.  I  believe  in  a 
future  of  this  our  race,  on  this  globe,  which  shall 
surpass  in  glory,  beauty,  harmony,  and  wisdom  all 
dreams  of  poets  and  of  prophets.  I  believe  in  it, 
and  I  believe  that  it  will  come  to  be,  because  I  be- 
lieve in  it. 

And  then,  only  then,  mankind  will  grow  like  a 
field  of  wheat,  every  stem  standing  independently, 
protecting  its  neighbours,  but  not  leaning  on  them, 
nor  supporting  them;  every  stem  rooted  in  the  solid 
soil,  and  drawing  its  nourishment  from  the  earth; 
every  stem  striving  straight  toward  the  sky,  not 
pointing  to  its  neighbours,  but  upward  to  the  One 
Spender  of  Light,  until  it  finally  bows  down  in 
humility,  heavily  laden,  and  yields  up  its  ripe 
harvest. 

For  like  every  tiny  green  sprout  in  the  field  points 
anew  straightly  skyward,  so  in  every  newborn  babe 
the  desire  is  renewed  for  Happy  Humanity. 

And  this  may  be  the  reason  why  it  was  said  that 
we  could  not  enter  the  Kingdom  of  God  unless  we 
became  like  the  little  children. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CONCLUSION 

I  WISH  I  could  convey  to  my  readers  in  these  last 
few  pages  my  conviction  of  the  immense,  un- 
heard-of spiritual  revolution  that  has  now  begun 
in    humanity,    unprecedented   in   any  age,    uncon- 
ceivable in  its  consequences. 

It  has  begun  in  religion,  in  science,  in  language. 
All  social  and  material  changes  are  only  accessory 
to  it,  though  springing  from  the  same  mysterious 
source. 

It  began  with  the  better  knowledge  of  nature  a 
few  centuries  ago.  Natural  science  has  shaken  the 
foundations  of  every  religion. 

Of  course,  for  there  has  been  no  founder  of  any 
religion  who  knew  so  much  about  nature  and  the 
material  world  as  we  do  now. 

No  religion  of  Orient  or  Occident  can  satisfy  us. 
Nor  Buddha,  nor  Jesus,  knew  what  we  know  about 
the  universe,  about  life,  about  natural  phenomena, 
about  man.  This  is  obvious  from  their  words. 
Had  they  had  our  knowledge,  they  would  have 
spoken  differently. 

229 


23o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Yet  natural  science  could  not  supplant  religion  and 
religious  wisdom.  Principally  by  the  snares  and 
pitfalls  of  language  it  became  misleading,  dogmatic, 
and  created  what  is  known  as  the  materialistic  con- 
ception of  life  and  universe. 

Like  a  ship  in  a  squall,  natural  science  is  righting 
itself  now  from  this  fierce  error,  by  its  own  tendency 
toward  truth.  First  of  all,  in  mathematics,  the  pur- 
est of  all  sciences. 

Through  the  long,  patient  and  obscure  work 
of  mathematicians  a  conclusion  was  reached  for 
which  I  may  use  the  words  of  an  American, 
Cassius  J.  Keyser,  "that  any  universe  is  a  compo- 
nent of  an  extra-universal,  that  above  every  nature 
is  a  supernatural,  beyond  every  cosmos  a  hyper- 
cosmic."* 

Let  it  be  well  considered  what  this  means:  the 
existence  of  the  supernatural  indubitably  proven  by 
that  purest  and  strictest  of  all  sciences,  mathe- 
matics. 

Physics  and  chemistry,  by  constant  development, 
outgrow  the  childish  conceptions  of  materialism. 
The  discovery  of  radium  and  its  emanations,  of  the 
relation  between  electric,  chemical,  and  optical  phe- 
nonema,  brought  new  light  about  the  constitution 
of  what  is  called  "matter."  It  reminded  the  en- 
lightened scientist  that  "matter"  was  only  a  hypoth- 

*The  Universe  and  Beyond;  the  Existence  of  the  Hypercosmic.  Hibbert  Journal, 
January,  1905.  Among  the  founders  of  the  new  mathematical  science  may  be  men- 
tioned the  American,  Benjamin  Pierce. 


CONCLUSION  231 

esis,  a  more  or  less  fanciful  image,  useful,  but  insuf- 
ficient for  any  final  explanation. 

The  wonderful  law  of  entropy  was  discovered, 
showing  that  the  natural  phenomena  are  not  turning 
round  in  a  circle,  like  a  cat  chasing  its  tail,  but 
changing  in  a  definite  direction. 

Then  the  dark  problem  of  time  and  space 
was  tackled,  and  the  science  of  modern  mechanics 
has  actually  turned  upside  down  all  the  accepted 
old  ideas  and  conceptions,  by  introducing  the  rela- 
tivity of  time  into  our  mathematical  considera- 
tions. 

There  is  no  time  absolute,  nor  is  there  any  absolute 
measure  of  space.  No  "matter"  can  be  conceived 
as  a  means  for  the  conveyance  of  light.  There  is 
thought  and  movement,  and  the  world  as  we  know  it 
is  only  so  because  of  our  way  of  perceiving  it  and 
moving  in  it."  * 

The  world  changes  as  we  change.  And  we  are 
not  the  same,  one  second  and  the  next.  The  world, 
nature,  and  our  cosmos  are  what  we  made  it  out  to 
be,  and  will  change  according  to  our  movement  — 
that  is,  our  will. 

In  psychology  the  same  enlightenment  took  place. 
Not  only  by  the  work  of  great  psychical  researchers, 
but  also  by  the  pure  theoretical  work  of  philoso- 
phers like  Henri  Bergson,  who  proved  irrefutably 
that  memory  cannot  be  a  sort  of  storage  in  the 

*  I  have  to  name  here,  Lorentz,  Einstein,  Poincare1,  Minkowsky. 


232  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

brain,  and  that  a  human  being  must  be  something 
more  than  a  body. 

The  structure  of  the  cosmos  became  better  known 
and  the  remarkable  analogy  between  the  innumer- 
able suns  of  heaven,  floating  in  definite  streams,  and 
the  atoms  building  up  all  what  is  called  matter, 
brought  forward  the  thought,  whether  atoms  could 
not  be  suns  with  planets  and  life  on  them,  and  the 
stars  of  heaven  atoms  of  another  matter. 

The  work  of  Darwin  was  completed  in  unexpected 
ways  and  the  power  of  life,  which  materialists  con- 
sidered superfluous  in  the  economy  of  the  universe, 
reestablished  in  its  significance  as  a  directing  en- 
ergy.* 

All  this,  and  there  is  much  more  that  I  cannot 
even  mention,  shows  what  a  great,  unprecedented 
mental  revolution  is  going  on.  And  I  must  point  it 
out,  because  it  is  clear  that  our  strife  for  happiness 
cannot  be  definite,  stable  and  effective  before  that 
great  revolution  has  taken  place. 

For  one  half  of  mankind  is  still  bound  by  old, 
formal  religions,  teaching  us  to  despise  the  world, 
and  placing  all  bliss  in  what  an  Indian  friend  of 
mine,  the  Buddhist  priest  Anagarika  Dharmapala, 
used  to  call  scornfully  "the  post-mortem  heaven  of 
Christians." 

And  the  other  half,  educated  by  materialistic 
science  in  the  belief  that  a  human  being  is  bound  to 

*Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Life  and  Matter. 


CONCLUSION  233 

vanish  with  the  decay  of  his  body,  and  the  human 
race  with  the  decay  of  this  planet,  cannot  have  a 
higher  ideal,  nor  a  deeper  incentive  for  its  endeav- 
ours, than  a  pleasant  and  comfortable  material  life, 
of  eating,  drinking,  and  being  merry,  with  the  device: 
" Apres  nous  le  deluge!" 

There  are  extensive,  spiritual  currents,  like  theos- 
ophy,  that  try  to  unite  mankind  into  one  wisdom, 
without  dogma,  priests,  and  churches.  Of  these  I 
can  only  say  that  they  seem  to  me  premature.  They 
are  too  explicit,  trusting  on  means  of  communion 
that  are  imperfect,  and  science  that  is  still  too 
young.  They  tell  us  so  exactly  what  we  cannot 
yet  know,  that  we  must  foster  serious  doubts  about 
their  sources  of  information. 

Mankind  wants  facts,  not  idle  speculation  based 
on  sheer  intuition  or  fancy.  We  expect  a  new  wis- 
dom, not  a  new  religion,  nor  another  natural  science, 
but  a  transcendental  wisdom,  valid  for  all  men, 
Oriental  and  Occidental,  uniting  them  by  new,  un- 
known means  of  communion.  That  will  be  the 
dawn  of  the  new  era  of  social  equity,  wherein  man- 
kind will  use  its  earthly  career  for  the  foundation  of 
a  kingdom  of  God  that  is  not  of  this  world. 

The  current  called  socialism  has  taken  the  form 
of  social-democracy  and  thereby  entered  a  channel 
without  outlet. 

Social-democracy  was  based  on  scientific  concep- 
tions of  half  a  century  ago,  that  are  now  nearly  en- 


234  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

tirely  abandoned.  And  this  false  start,  this  germ 
of  materialism,  proved  to  be  its  undoing. 

Perhaps  this  is  not  yet  clear  in  America,  but  in 
Europe  the  failure  of  social-democracy  becomes  more 
obvious  every  day. 

It  has  lately  been  said  by  a  German  socialist,*  not 
unjustly,  that  capitalism  has  no  better  ally  than 
social-democracy.  For  they  are  working  both  to 
the  same  end,  making  the  position  of  master  and 
slave  more  tolerable,  and  thereby  more  tolerated 
and  more  stable. 

Class  war,  trade  unionism,  both  are  thoroughly 
capitalistic  phenomena,  and  their  effect  goes  to  a 
constant  strengthening  of  society  as  a  capitalistic 
structure. 

The  worker  gets  higher  wages,  old-age  pensions, 
all  sorts  of  protection  by  law  and  government;  the 
capitalist  is  obliged  to  treat  his  subordinates  fairly, 
to  be  more  careful,  more  humane  and  philanthropic. 
And  so  the  old  order,  with  its  debasing  results  of 
idle  rich  and  subsidized  pauper,  becomes  more  and 
more  permanent. 

Fatal  consequences  ensued  from  the  fundamen- 
tal, or,  rather,  germinative,  mistake  of  Karl  Marx, 
who  expected  matter  to  set  the  mind  right,  instead 
of  mind  to  arrange  matter. 

When  socialism  is  to  become  a  glorious  reality  it 
will  not  be  by  letting  things  go  their  own  way,  or  by 


*Gustav  Landauer. 


CONCLUSION  235 

bringing  political  power  in  the  hands  of  the  prole- 
tariat, but  only  by  the  supremacy  of  the  spirit  of 
wisdom,  equity,  and  love. 

What  I  proposed  in  the  way  of  practical  reform 
is  very  feasible,  very  easy,  and  simple  even.  Far 
greater  miracles  have  been  achieved  by  human 
beings. 

Why  was  it  not  done  and  brought  to  success  long 
ago? 

Because  every  material  growth  is  impossible  with- 
out a  spiritual  germ,  and  that  germ  has  to  develop 
in  an  organic  way.  . 

What  we  call  civilized  mankind  is  apparently 
well  organized.  The  king  or  president  at  the  top, 
the  responsible  government  next,  the  judge,  the 
lawyer,  the  police,  the  citizen,  each  with  his 
private  sphere  of  power,  all  in  their  respective 
places. 

But  all  this  is  only  apparent;  this  is  the  material, 
political  organization. 

Money,  the  economic  power,  comes  between,  and 
we  see  a  contest  between  money  owners  and  political 
rulers,  in  which  the  economic  power  often  proves 
victorious. 

Yet  political  kings  and  economic  kings  are  both 
subject  to  spiritual  powers,  to  knowledge  and  wis- 
dom, no  matter  whether  they  are  aware  of  it  or 
not. 

And  the  real,  lasting  organization  of  mankind  will 


236  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

be  the  spiritual  organization,  wherein  the  kingdom 
of  mental  and  spiritual  superiority  will  supplant 
hereditary  royalty. 

True  democracy  cannot  mean  anything  else  but 
that  the  great  majority  of  grown-up  citizens  con- 
sciously approve  of  and  submit  to  the  rule  of  the 
wisest  and  the  best. 

Its  realization  depends  entirely  upon  the  power  of 
discernment  of  the  average  citizen. 

Appointing  a  king  by  heredity  is  a  poor  hap- 
hazard method,  a  pis  aller^  an  avowal  of  the 
multitude  that  it  is  not  yet  of  age,  unable  to 
distinguish  and  to  elect.  Everybody  knows  that 
heredity  does  not  give  any  certainty  about  the 
ability  to  rule. 

Granting  power  to  the  owner  of  money,  according 
to  his  wealth,  is  sheer  folly  in  a  society  where  every 
scoundrel  is  allowed  to  gather  an  unlimited  amount  of 
it,  and  the  sources  of  wealth  are  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal and  left  to  the  greed  of  any  unscrupulous 
individual. 

In  a  society  the  majority  of  which  wants  this  sort 
of  private  piracy  and  irresponsibility,  even  the  re- 
publican method  of  electing  the  ruler  is  powerless 
and  a  sham. 

The  citizens  of  such  a  society  are  still  in  a  state 
of  semi-barbarism;  they  lack  elemental  wisdom,  and 
they  cannot  have  the  discernment  to  elect  the  wise, 
the  just,  and  the  good. 


CONCLUSION  237 

Such  is  a  condition  of  things  in  what  we  are  call- 
ing now  civilized  countries. 

Yet  this  is  not  civilization  as  it  was  understood 
and  foreseen  by  the  best  of  humanity. 

Nay,  even  the  average  citizen  will  agree,  when  his 
best  self  and  profoundest  conviction  come  to  light, 
that  this  state  of  affairs  does  not  respond  to  his 
ideal  of  a  commonwealth. 

He  does  not  know,  however,  how  it  could  be 
changed,  nor  does  he  see  any  opportunity  for  per- 
sonal endeavour  to  change  it. 

The  reason  of  this  is  that  human  beings  are 
gregarious  and  must  follow  the  principles  and 
movements  of  the  herd,  otherwise  they  could  not 
exist.  They  must  be  moral  —  that  is,  they  must 
obey  the  "mores,"  the  customs  of  the  multi- 
tude. 

Yet  the  change  will  come,  because  we  all  want  it. 
The  tendency  is  universal,  the  pent-up  energy  is 
enormous  and  daily  increasing. 

Not  by  legislation  can  the  change  begin,  for  this 
would  mean  coercion  of  the  majority,  who  do 
not  see  that  the  present  "mores"  are  wrong  and 
against  the  individual  conscience,  by  a  minority 
whose  conviction  is  not  reinforced  by  the  proof 
of  practice. 

Nor  can  the  multitude,  by  election,  grant  power  to 
an  individual  whose  conviction  deviates  from  exist- 
ing customs. 


238  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

And  yet  such  individuals  are  wanted,  who  will  not 
submit  to  the  principles  of  the  herd,  but  show  new 
ways. 

To  establish  a  better  and  lasting  organization  we 
want  the  authority  of  superior  minds,  who  elect 
themselves,  just  like  Cromwell,  Washington,  Na- 
poleon elected  themselves,  but  in  a  higher  plane  of 
spiritual  activity.  The  multitude  cannot  find  them 
out  before  they  have  shown  their  superiority  by 
practical  proof.  After  that  they  will  be  followed 
and  supported  enthusiastically,  more  so  than  either 
Cromwell,  Washington,  or  Napoleon. 

This  leadership  needs  not  to  be  confined  to 
one  man,  it  may  belong  to  a  group  of  men  and 
women.  What  moves  them  must  be  the  germ 
of  transcendental  wisdom,  the  spirit  of  equity  and 
love. 

American  social-democrats,  though  they  may  not 
be  so  dogmatic  and  materialistic  as  the  Germans, 
still  believe  in  the  power  of  the  multitude  to  dis- 
cern and  elect  those  leaders  that  are  wanted  for 
the  reorganization  of  society.  They  believe  that 
socialists  can  be  made  beforehand,  before  any  so- 
cialistic activity  takes  place,  by  reasoning  and 
argument,  in  sufficient  number  to  choose  a  truly 
socialistic  leader,  able  to  reorganize  human  activity 
according  to  socialistic  ideals. 

My  experience,  and  the  political  events  in  France 
and  Germany  as  well,  have  taught  me  that  this 


CONCLUSION  239 

is  an  illusion,  resulting  from  a  want  of  insight  in 
the  psychology  of  the  masses.  A  true  socialist  is 
quite  a  different  person  from  a  socialist  voter,  and  a 
socialist  organizer  is  still  more  different  from  a  so- 
cialist political  leader.  Millions  of  socialist  voters 
with  scores  of  political  leaders  have  not  produced 
one  single  truly  socialistic  organization. 

The  man  of  genius  able  to  change  the  human 
activity  according  to  socialistic  ideals  cannot  be 
found  out  by  a  host  of  socialistic  voters.  They 
would  never  elect  him,  and  would  very  probably 
oppose  his  leadership  if  he  were  in  power. 

On  my  lecturing  tours  through  America  I  ad- 
dressed many  thousands,  and  sometimes  met  with 
the  most  hearty  sympathy  and  enthusiasm.  I 
spoke  to  a  number  of  people  sufficient  to  form  a 
splendid  organization.  Yet  they  all  went  home  to 
their  wonted  business  and  followed  the  beaten  track 
of  custom,  simply  because  there  was  no  leading 
genius  to  organize  them  and  to  point  out  to  each  a 
new  and  better  form  of  activity.  A  clever  American 
friend  of  mine  even  laid  a  wager  that  I  would  never 
find,  among  successful  business  men  in  America,  a 
single  one  who  would  deviate  from  his  wonted  course 
of  work  to  initiate  a  new  scheme,  however  easy  and 
acceptable  it  might  be  to  him. 

I  have  not  yet  lost  that  wager,  though  I  readily 
acknowledge  the  psychological  truth  in  my  friend's 
contention.  Human  beings  are  not  only  gregarious, 


24o  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

but  also  essentially  customary  animals,  addicted  to 
habit,  tradition,  and  convention. 

I  found  indeed  clever  and  successful  business  men 
inclined,  even  determined,  to  carry  out  my  plan. 
They  were  exceptional  men,  however,  and  the  way 
I  pointed  out  lay  very  near  the  track  on  which  they 
had  been  advancing  themselves. 

I  will  not  mention  their  names  here,  because 
the  work  itself,  if  it  is  successful,  will  make  them 
known  soon  enough.  They  have  to  begin  single 
handed,  and  will  not  find  adherers  and  supporters 
before  they  can  show  results  and  successful  deeds. 
So  strong  is  human  gregariousness  and  adherence 
to  habit. 

Freedom  of  mind,  perception  of  new  possibilities, 
can  be  found  easiest  among  poets  and  artists.  They 
also  have  the  keenest  consciousness  of  the  present 
want  and  misery  of  the  human  race.  Their  im- 
agination shows  them  what  humanity  could  be  and 
makes  them  feel  painfully  the  contrast  with  what  it 
is  now.  In  them,  if  they  belong  to  the  true,  genuine 
sort,  burns  the  shame  for  human  degradation  and 
the  fiery  impulse  of  love  to  help  and  restore. 

It  was  said  in  ancient  times  that  the  poet  ought  to 
go  with  the  king,  and  it  was  Plato  who  looked  for 
the  rule  of  the  philosopher-king. 

In  our  time  we  want  the  artist,  the  poet,  to  go  with 
the  man  of  economic  power. 

The  man  who  is  to  restore  justice  and  equity  in 


CONCLUSION  241 

human  society  has  to  be  a  poet  as  well  as  a  busi- 
ness man. 

Humanity  can  only  look  for  happiness  —  that 
is,  for  movement  in  the  true  direction  —  by  trusting 
to  the  leadership  of  practical  men  with  transcen- 
dental wisdom. 

The  Emperor  of  the  Chinese,  two  thousand  years 
ago,  was  also  supposed  to  be  the  man  of  supreme  wis- 
dom who  took  upon  himself  the  burden  of  all  the 
sins  and  transgressions  of  his  millions  of  subjects. 

This  is  the  sort  of  kingship  we  want.  Not 
crowned  figureheads  who  distribute  titles  and  or- 
ders, but  great  men  of  organizing  genius  and  poetical 
temperament,  with  hearts  heavy  from  the  sorrows 
of  mankind,  and  restless  from  the  burning  love  to 
help  them,  seeing  farther  than  their  fellow  men  in 
the  glorious  transcendental  future  of  the  race,  when 
nature  will  be  conquered  and  this  world  will  make 
place  gradually  for  the  next. 

I  found  such  poetical  minds,  pregnant  with  the 
coming  glories  of  the  future,  but  I  found  them  not 
yet,  as  they  ought  to  be,  associating  with  the  man 
of  economic  power  and  organizing  genius. 

And  I  found  also  that  the  idea  is  ripening  of  a 
High  Court  of  Humanity  establishing  itself  on  its  own 
account,  voluntarily  and  forcibly,  out  of  men  who 
are  conscious  to  possess,  all  alone  or  in  combina- 
tion with  others,  the  organizing  ability,  the  poetical 
imagination,  the  self-sacrificing  love,  necessary  to 


242  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

direct  human  activity  and  lead  it  toward  salvation. 
During  the  latter  part  of  the  life  of  Tolstoy  we  had 
in  him,  who  was  a  poet  and  a  true  king  of  humanity, 
full  of  royal  love,  a  sort  of  individual  conscience  of 
mankind  whose  voice  was  listened  to  whenever  he 
spoke. 

But  Tolstoy's  influence  was  insignificant  in  com- 
parison with  what  it  would  have  been  if  he  could 
have  associated  and  worked  together  with  men  of 
transcendental  insight  and  practical  ability.  As  it 
was,  he  stood  alone,  unsupported  and  uncorrected, 
and  said  many  things  that  we  can  hardly  take 
seriously. 

Wandering  as  I  have  been,  on  lecturing  tours 
through  Europe  and  America,  I  felt  how  necessary 
it  is  to  bring  into  contact  with  each  other  those 
few  individuals  who  could  form  by  their  combined 
qualities  and  activities  the  germ,  or  nucleus,  of  a 
better  human  organization. 

It  was  G.  S.  Lee,  the  clever  and  humorous  writer 
of  "Inspired  Millionaires,"  who  called  this  way  of 
working  "Spiritual  engineering"  And  that  most 
fervent  and  gifted  American  enthusiast,  Upton  Sin- 
clair, wrote  to  me  with  nearly  the  same  intention. 

I  have  been  indeed  prospecting  for  human  hap- 
piness, and  after  long  experience  I  found  this  the 
most  promising  way  of  using  my  energy  efficiently. 

If  this  nucleus  consists  of  the  right  elements  — 
and  who  can  say  beforehand  that  these  elements  are 


CONCLUSION  243 

absent  among  the  millions  of  living  men?  —  it  will 
develop  a  power  stronger  than  all  political  or  eco- 
nomic groups.  For  its  energy  will  be  "directing 
energy,"  which  is  also  the  energy  of  Life,  the  energy 
that  changes,  by  one  tiny  germ,  a  desert  into  a 
wood.  It  ought  to  include  the  best  individuals  of 
mankind.  But  not  therefore  the  most  renowned, 
nor  the  most  intelligent,  nor  those  of  best  parentage. 

For  what  they  should  possess  in  the  first  place 
are  royal  love  and  transcendental  wisdom,  and  these 
qualities  do  not  always  bring  high  renown,  nor  do 
they  appear  only  in  distinguished  circles,  or  in 
special  nations  and  peoples. 

These  qualities  are  prerogatives  of  genius,  and 
genius  is  more  than  a  crown  and  sceptre,  a  symptom 
of  divine  grace  which  can  show  itself  unexpectedly 
among  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  in  all  parts 
of  the  globe. 

Human  beings  who  combine  deep  wisdom  with 
self-sacrificing  love  and  practical  ability  are  very 
rare.  Yet  men  of  genius  have  always  been  rare, 
and  human  progress  nevertheless  depended  on  them. 

And  where  no  single  individual  can  be  found 
uniting  all  these  necessary  qualities,  it  might  still 
be  possible  to  find  different  individuals  who  act  as 
one  being,  united  by  brotherly  love  and  the  common 
feeling  for  mankind  and  its  misery. 

The  average  American  is  not  aware  of  the  depth 
and  extent  of  human  misery.  Taking  a  good  look 


244  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

in  the  Old  World,  in  Europe,  in  Russia  with  its 
millions  of  starving  peasants,  in  India  with  three 
hundred  millions  living  in  the  most  dreadful  des- 
titution, in  teeming,  toiling  China,  he  could  see  at 
the  cost  of  what  physical  and  moral  suffering  hu- 
manity exists  and  the  few  people  of  leisure  live  their 
comfortable  lives. 

And  then,  what  sort  of  "happiness"  is  reached 
after  all?  How  shallow  and  commonplace  is  it  what 
the  few  rich  gain  by  the  toil  and  drudgery  of  the 
many  poor! 

I  know  wise  people  —  Lady  Welby  among  the 
number  —  who  entirely  reject  the  word  "happiness" 
as  indicating  that  supreme  good  that  humanity 
needs. 

They  would  rather  speak  of  "enthusiasm,"  or 
"spirituality,"  or  use  that  fine  German  word  " Be- 
geisterung"  A  high-minded  contemporary  Dutch 
author,  speaking  of  Bellamy's  "Looking  Backward," 
called  the  material  happiness  depicted  therein  a 
"most  horrible  nightmare,"  and  expressed  his  sat- 
isfaction that  he  would  surely  not  live  to  see  it. 

I  wonder  whether  the  majority  of  New  World  cit- 
izens will  understand  that  feeling.  In  the  old  coun- 
tries, Europe  and  Asia,  we  have  seen  enough  of  the 
emptiness  and  insufficiency  of  material  comfort  and 
welfare  to  despise  it  as  a  final  goal. 

Most  striking  to  the  visitor  from  the  Old  World 
is  the  cheerful  activity  of  Americans,  their  happy 


CONCLUSION  245 

belief  in  material  prosperity  as  a  worthy  aim  to  live 
and  die  for. 

In  comparison  with  the  American  mental  atmos- 
phere that  of  Europe  is  gloomy  and  oppressive. 
Notwithstanding  the  numerous  symptoms  of  prog- 
ress, the  increasing  wealth  of  France,  Germany, 
England,  and  the  other  countries,  there  is  a  general 
sadness,  a  lack  of  idealism  and  enthusiasm,  a  bitter, 
cynical,  skeptical  spirit  pervading  the  more  civilized 
parts  of  these  nations. 

England  is  quite  representative  in  this  respect. 
It  is  eminently  successful,  wealthy,  formidable,  and 
gloomy.  It  keeps  a  proud  and  brilliant  counte- 
nance, hiding  in  a  display  of  imperial  glory  the  hor- 
rible sores  of  its  civilization.  In  this  sort  of  sham- 
ming the  English  are  unrivalled.  Nowhere  is  the 
capitalistic  rule  established  more  surely,  or  has 
entered  more  deeply  into  the  souls  of  the  people, 
rich  and  poor  alike.  The  rich  are  moderate,  phil- 
anthropic, intelligent,  sportive,  knowing  how  to 
balance  the  dangers  of  wealth;  the  poor  are  polite, 
servile,  loyal,  enjoying  the  alms  of  the  rich  and  the 
splendour  of  pageants  and  festivities,  like  the  Roman 
people  their  circus  performances. 

Where  is,  however,  the  great  art  corresponding 
to  this  political  greatness?  The  greatest  English 
author  of  to-day,  indeed  the  only  living  English 
author  of  more  than  national  importance,  B.  Shaw, 
is  so  brimful  of  bitterness  and  sarcasm  that  it  is 


246  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

considered  the  best  policy  among  Englishmen  not 
to  take  him  seriously. 

And  I  may  point  out  as  a  very  significant  fact  that 
the  poet  of  fashion  now  in  English  society,  perhaps 
the  most  widely  read  poet  in  pious,  Christian,  church- 
going,  Sunday-keeping  England,  is  a  man  who  sang, 
a  thousand  years  ago,  the  glory  of  wine  and  women, 
having  no  notion  of  something  worthier  to  live  for. 

On  board  an  Atlantic  steamer  I  met  a  most  charm- 
ing, high-bred  English  lady  who  boasted  that  she  had 
made  presents  to  her  lady  friends  of  over  fifty  copies 
of  the  "Rubaiyat"  of  Omar  Khayam.  And  not  less 
significant  is  this  fact  which  I  found  true  for  nearly 
all  the  rest  of  European  nations,  that  the  man  who 
is  now  rising  in  fame  among  them  as  the  greatest 
author  of  the  last  century  is  that  terrible,  unspar- 
ingly lugubrious  Russian,  Dostoiewsky. 

Omar  Khayam,  the  sincere  prophet  of  frivol- 
ity, and  Dostoiewsky,  the  relentless  explorer  of  the 
darkest  of  human  woes  and  shames,  these  two  mark 
the  extremes  between  which  modern  mankind  is 
wavering. 

And  socialism,  looked  upon  half  a  century  ago  as 
the  dawn  of  liberation,  is  now  increasing  in  exten- 
sion, as  social-democracy,  but  losing  in  true  social- 
istic power  and  character,  leaving  a  dreary  sense  of 
disappointment  and  fatigue  in  the  hearts  of  the 
once  zealous  and  enthusiastic  adherers. 

This  characterizes  the  present  gloom  of  Europe. 


CONCLUSION  247 

It  will  not  do  for  America  to  scorn  and  scoff  and 
call  the  Old  World  superannuated  and  dull,  passing 
into  extinction. 

America  is  still  feeding  upon  the  remnants  of 
Oriental  and  European  wisdom.  It  has  not  yet 
developed  its  own  philosophy.  It  is  walking  the 
same  way  as  England,  and  when  it  has  come  to  the 
summit  of  prosperity  it  will  see  the  same  precipices 
of  extravagance  and  pauperism,  of  gloom  and  de- 
spondency, all  around. 

Then  it  will  come  to  contemplation,  and  sit  brood- 
ing, like  the  Old  World  is  doing  now,  wanting  wings, 
the  wings  of  a  higher  spiritual  life. 

An  American  publisher  said  of  one  of  my  books 
that  it  was  too  disagreeable  for  the  American  reader. 

But  when  the  American  will  refuse  to  see  the 
disagreeable  reality  in  the  pure  mirror  of  art  he 
will  soon  have  to  face  it,  far  more  disagreeable,  in 
life. 

When  I  used  the  word  "happiness"  in  regard  to  A 
humanity,  I  meant  that  state  of  mind  that  ensues 
from  the  consciousness  of  being  on  the  right  track  — ^ 
not  any  final  condition. 

I  do  not  believe  in  "final"  conditions  of  humanity. 
We  never  see  an  "end"  to  anything  real.  Where- 
ever  we  see  finality  either  the  end  or  the  thing  itself 
proves  to  be  unreal.  And  if  I  had  to  believe  in 
evolution  as  it  is  understood  by  materialistic  science, 
being  a  sort  of  see-saw  between  birth  and  death, 


248  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

ending  in  its  starting  point  and  there  beginning  anew, 
I  would  rather  prefer  to  stop  at  once  and  have  done 
with  all  the  trouble. 

Once  more  I  will  lay  stress  on  that  tremendous  in- 
sight whereto  our  present  generation  has  come,  and 
which  is  the  essential  feature  in  the  spiritual  revo- 
lution now  begun,  the  critical  insight  in  the  inade- 
quacy of  language  as  an  instrument  for  thought  and 
communion. 

This  insight  is  entirely  new  to  the  human  race, 
that  suffered  so  long  under  the  tyranny  of  the  word. 

I  found  it,  as  told,  in  the  life-work  of  Lady 
Welby;  I  found  it  in  the  remarkable  book  of  a  young 
German  writer  of  genius;*  I  found  it  also  in  a  witty 
and  deep  work  by  Allen  Upward,  called  "The  New 
World." 

We  are  only  in  the  very  beginning  of  a  new  era 
of  human  civilization.  Science,  as  Norman  Lockyer 
expressed  it,  is  not  yet  born,  it  is  only  conceived. 

And  language,  the  means  of  exploring  the  human 
mind  and  of  binding  human  beings  together  in  one 
union,  has  entirely  to  be  regenerated. 

This  process  is  organic  and  cosmic  and  has  to  grow 
slowly,  like  all  cosmic  phenomena.  And  the  first 
requisite  for  a  scientific  explorer  and  a  wise  man  is 
patience. 

We  know  that  words  and  language  are  mislead- 
ing, and  yet  we  have  only  words,  words,  words. 

*Siderische  Geburt  (Sideric  birth),  by  Volker,  Berlin. 


CONCLUSION  249 

All  that  I  have  said  I  know  to  be  preliminary  and 
approximative.  Yet  a  German  socialist*  has  re- 
marked very  truly  that  we  have  to  reckon  with 
approximative  values  in  every  science  and  most  of 
all  in  sociology. 

Allen  Upward,  in  the  book  just  mentioned,  tells 
us  how  a  boy  once  came  up  to  him  wanting  him  to 
"make  his  hoop  round."  He  smiled  at  the  appall- 
ing request  that  even  God,  though  He  might  per- 
haps have  been  able  to  do  it,  never  had  fulfilled. 
But  then  he  gave,  instead  of  the  unattainable  exact 
roundness,  the  approximative  one,  sufficient  for  the 
boy  to  use  his  hoop  and  play  with  it. 

I  tried  to  make  the  hoop  just  round  enough  to 
play  with  it.  I  tried  to  give  as  much  concreteness  as 
Americans  want  in  order  to  "see"  a  thing,  and  not 
more  philosophy  than  they  can  patiently  stand. 

In  fact,  I  am  afraid  that  I  gave  too  little  phil- 
osophy. That  is,  I  spoke  more  of  material  and  less 
of  spiritual  concreteness  than  a  wise  man,  aware  of 
the  far  greater  reality  of  the  latter,  ought  to  do. 

Let  there  be  then  no  mistake.  It  was  not  material 
comfort  that  I  had  in  view,  but  something  far  above 
and  beyond  —  something  for  which  we  have  not 
yet  words  nor  language  to  express  it.  Yet  it  must 
be  reached  through  material  prosperity. 

The  great  thing  is  to  keep  in  motion,  to  move  on, 
though  the  wheels  may  not  be  perfectly  round. 

•Otto  Effertz. 


250  HAPPY  HUMANITY 

Motion  is  the  secret  of  love,  as  was  expressed  by 
that  Oriental  tale  about  the  ring  which  was  always 
lost  by  him  who  wore  it,  unless  kept  in  motion. 

So  it  is  about  deeds,  practical  deeds  that  I  have 
spoken,  for  the  happiness  always  attainable  for  man- 
kind is  the  feeling  to  move  on  in  the  direction  of 
Right  and  Truth. 


APPENDIX  I 

THE   COOPERATIVE    COMPANY   OF   AMERICA 

Suggested  Outline  of  Programme  and  Constitution 

THEORY 

To  provide  a  business  whose  object  will  be  to  harmonize  the 
demands  of  producers  and  consumers,  and  to  eliminate  waste. 

To  increase  gradually  the  activities  and  scope  of  the  business 
until  it  shall  include  all  industries. 

To  make  the  business  economic  exclusively  —  entirely  di- 
vorced from  religious  or-  political  entanglements. 

PRACTICAL   PROBLEMS 

To  obtain  capital. 

To  provide  wise,  able  and  intelligent  direction  for  affairs. 
To  insure  continuous  or  practically  continuous  employment 
for  those  engaged  in  the  company. 
To  arrange,  for  an  indefinitely  extended  existence. 

DETAIL 
Capital  and  Shares 

A.  Capital  will  be  raised  by  offering  stock.    This  stock  will 
be  dividend-producing;  but  provision  will  be  made  that  it  can 
be  replaced  within  a  given  time  by  5  per  cent,  first  mortgage 
bonds,  in  an  amount  equal  to  the  book  value  of  the  stock. 
This  reduces  the  dividend-outgo  of  the  corporation  upon  its 
initial  capital  to  an  interest  expense;  and  a  sinking  fund  will  be 
provided  in  order  that  the  bonds  may  be  ultimately  retired  and 
the  ownership  of  the  entire  property  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
workers,  directive  workers  as  well  as  productive  workers. 

B.  Permanent    profit-producing    stock    to    members    only; 
this  stock  paying  dividends  and  being  amortized  by  lot.    This 

251 


252  APPENDIX 

stock  will  be  personal  and  not  transferable.  The  share  itself 
will  become  the  property  of  the  company  by  inheritance  on  the 
death  of  the  holder,  except  that  the  dividends  will  be  paid  to 
the  direct  family  of  the  deceased  so  long  as  his  widow  lives  or 
the  children  are  minors. 

The  number  of  shares  any  member  will  be  allowed  to  hold 
will  be  limited,  but  at  a  high  limit  —  a  hundred  shares  of  $500, 
for  instance,  or  five  hundred  shares  at  #100.  Any  amount  of 
shares  will  give  one  vote  only. 

Shares  will  be  bought  back  by  the  company  when  a  member 
leaves,  at  once,  or  gradually  within  a  given  limit  of  time.  The 
member  on  forfeiting  his  membership  will  have  no  right  to  divi- 
dends or  to  a  vote;  if  his  shares  are  not  purchased  promptly, 
they  will  be  regarded  as  a  loan,  and  interest  will  be  paid  him 
until  such  loan  is  liquidated. 

The  members  will  purchase  their  shares  outright  or  receive 
them  as  reductions  in  wages.  Or  they  will  be  entitled  to  higher 
wages  and  no  shares;  in  this  case  they  will  not  be  entitled  to  a 
vote  and  will  receive  no  dividends.  So  the  shares  will  be  a  vol- 
untary investment. 

DIVISION    OF   PROFITS 

All  net  profits  will  be  apportioned  as  follows: 

Not  less  than  40  per  cent,  will  be  kept  as  a  fund  for  the  ex- 
tension of  the  business  and  for  purposes  of  general  interest  to 
the  members,  after  the  liquidation  of  the  original  debt,  with  its 
dividends  and  interest  as  previously  specified. 

Forty  per  cent,  will  be  divided  among  the  members,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  they  may  hold  in  shares;  this  being  over 
and  above  their  wages. 

Twenty  per  cent,  will  be  paid  as  dividends  or  rebates  to  the 
associates,  to  be  later  specified. 

ORGANIZATION    OF   THE    COMPANY 

A.  Trustees.     General  Management 

The  Board  of  Trustees  will  be  the  original  constituents  of  the 
company.  They  will  constitute  themselves  by  incorporation, 
and  will  have  entire  control  of  the  business. 


APPENDIX  253 

When  the  number  of  members  shall  grow  to  one  thousand, 
or  after  seven  years  shall  have  elapsed  since  the  incorporation 
of  the  company,  the  members  will  elect  one  new  member  to 
the  Board  of  Trustees,  to  succeed  an  original  member  whose 
resignation  shall  have  been  determined  upon  by  lot.  After 
this  every  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  resigns,  one  each 
year,  by  lot,  and  the  members  of  the  company  will  choose  his 
successor  by  ballot,  whether  from  within  or  without  the  com- 
pany, the  choice  being  absolutely  free.  Membership  will  be  for 
a  term  of  years,  and  the  members  will  have  the  right  of  recall 
of  any  trustee  by  a  three  fourths  vote,  after  complaint  shall 
have  been  publicly  registered  for  a  specified  length  of  time. 

The  Board  of  Trustees,  within  the  limits  of  the  impeachment 
power  of  the  members,  will  be  the  highest  court  of  appeal,  and 
will  appoint  the  general  manager  for  the  company,  and  fix  his 
salary.  The  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  itself  will  re- 
ceive no  salary. 

The  general  manager  will  appoint  all  sub-managers  and  will 
nominate  to  the  Board  of  Trustees  all  candidates  for  member- 
ship. Every  sub-manager  will  be  responsible  for  the  depart- 
ment of  which  he  is  the  head.  The  wages  or  salaries  of  the 
sub-managers,  and  ultimately  of  every  working  member  of  the 
company  receiving  a  wage,  will  be  fixed  by  the  general  manager. 

Every  member  of  the  company  will  be  bound  to  strict  obe- 
dience to  his  superiors  as  far  as  business  is  concerned.  The  gen- 
eral manager  will  have  the  right  to  fine  or  dismiss  any  member, 
but  the  delinquent  will  have  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  Board 
of  Trustees. 

B.  Membership 

The  company  will  be  composed  of  members  and  of  appren- 
tices, and  the  members  will  be  divided  into  two  classes,  voters 
and  non-voters. 

As  a  preliminary  to  membership,  an  apprenticeship  of  one  or 
two  years  will  be  required.  Only  vigorous  and  thoroughly 
healthy  individuals  will  be  considered  for  apprenticeship  — 
individuals  with  good  antecedents;  and  no  one  will  be  allowed 
more  than  a  two  years'  apprenticeship,  except  by  special  dis- 


254  APPENDIX 

pensation  of  the  Board  of  Trustees.  If  after  two  years  the 
apprentice  is  rejected  as  a  member  he  must  leave.  While  an 
apprentice  he  will  receive  a  standard  wage,  according  to  the 
class  of  work  that  he  does. 

The  apprentice  will  become  a  member  through  election  by  the 
Board  of  Trustees  on  nomination  by  the  general  manager,  who 
will  consider  the  report  which  the  immediate  sub-manager  in 
contact  with  the  apprentice  will  make.  The  opinion  of  the 
members  associated  with  the  apprentice  will  likewise  be  con- 
sulted in  the  choice  of  members. 

Apprentices  will  be  dismissable  on  short  notice,  for  definite 
or  indefinite  reasons,  on  the  suggestion  of  the  general  man- 
ager concurred  in  by  the  Board  of  Trustees;  members,  only  on 
proved  charges  of  misconduct. 

Admission  to  membership  will  be  without  distinction  of  sex. 
But  the  wife  and  children  of  the  member  will  not  be  considered 
as  members  unless  so  constituted  independently. 

Members  will  be  voters  or  non-voters  according  as  they  are 
holders  of  shares.  A  member,  not  a  shareholder,  will  have 
passed  his  apprenticeship  regularly  and  will  be  entitled  to  the 
acquisition  of  shares  without  preliminaries. 

C.     Associates 

Besides  members  and  apprentices,  who  will  work  in  the  com- 
pany, there  will  be  associates,  who  will  be  the  customers  of  the 
articles  produced  by  the  company.  These  associates  will  have 
no  control  over  the  business,  but  will  receive,  according  to  the 
amount  of  their  purchases,  the  20  per  cent,  of  the  total  net 
profits  previously  specified.  The  sale  of  goods  will  be  granted 
impartially  to  all  who  may  wish  to  buy. 

GENERAL   POLICY   OF  THE   COMPANY 

The  company  will  work,  legitimately  but  aggressively,  on 
strict  business  lines.  It  will  begin  in  some  department  of  in- 
dustry or  commerce  offering  as  varied  employment  as  possible 
and  where  with  good  management  success  will  be  quickly  as- 
sured; it  will  then,  especially  in  its  early  stages,  proceed  along 


APPENDIX  255 

the  lines  of  least  resistance.  Its  policy  will  be  to  expand  con- 
tinuously, embracing  as  many  trades  as  possible,  in  such  man- 
ner as  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  unemployment  for  any  member 
by  shifting  the  unskilled  hands  and  training  the  half-skilled  hands 
for  different  work,  according  to  season  and  opportunity.  The 
positive  aim  of  the  company  will  be  to  embrace  all  trades  and 
all  branches  of  commerce  necessary  to  produce  and  distribute 
the  commodities  for  all  real  wants;  real  wants  here  including 
the  more  spiritual  as  well  as  the  more  material  wants.  Give-and- 
take  will  be  sought  with  the  supply  and  demand  of  the  general 
market,  in  order  that  the  company  may  never  become  a  closed 
enterprise  but  may  always  have  an  inflow  of  money-capital; 
40  per  cent,  or  more  of  the  profits  being  reserved,  according  to 
the  constitution,  for  purposes  of  extension  and  of  general  wel- 
fare. Gradually  will  be  formed  a  community,  an  organized 
whole  of  workers  who  are  at  one  and  the  same  time  producers 
and  consumers,  and  in  this  community  none  will  be  able  to  live 
on  the  products  of  the  common  activity  without  having  con- 
tributed to  it  in  the  form  of  work,  unless  this  is  consciously 
and  voluntarily  allowed,  as  in  the  case  of  invalids,  children, 
and  those  workers  whose  work  is  recognized  not  to  be  of 
direct  material  utility  but  of  higher  import  —  as  artists,  thinkers, 
men  of  science. 

The  company  will  as  soon  as  possible  take  in  hand  the  educa- 
tion of  the  children  of  all  its  members,  in  so  far  as  this  is  not 
done  by  the  state,  and  it  will,  as  its  means  allow,  take  in  hand 
the  further  education  of  promising  young  children  or  of  mem- 
bers, in  a  liberal  and  broad-minded  manner.  It  will,  moreover, 
as  soon  as  its  means  allow,  further  in  a  liberal  way  those  move- 
ments of  science  and  art  which  can  be  considered  as  generally 
approved.  It  will  not  confine  its  activity  in  these  directions  to 
its  own  organization,  but  will  work  outside  as  well.  In  its  pro- 
duction the  company  will  draw  the  line  at  really  dangerous  and 
harmful  commodities,  such  as  strong  drinks. 

As  the  company  will  permit  none  of  its  members,  without 
good  reason,  to  live  without  actual  work  on  the  products  of 
the  common  activity,  so  it  will  not  allow  its  members  to  suffer 


25.6  APPENDIX 

for  the  want  of  employment.  The  leading  concern  of  the  com- 
pany will  be  the  distribution  of  employment  and  its  proper 
remuneration.  After  having  become  firmly  established,  the 
company  will  be  conservatively  liberal  in  its  admission  of 
members,  and  will  never  shut  out  from  membership  those  who 
may  be  willing  to  join  and  cannot  be  said  to  offer  a  danger  to 
the  whole. 

In  the  arrangement  of  a  wage-scale,  union  wages  and  the 
price  given  for  labour  in  the  common  market  will  be  considered, 
but  the  payment  in  the  form  of  shares  will  be  encouraged. 

In  the  case  of  the  invalidism  of  a  member,  the  number  of 
years  of  service  will  be  taken  into  account.  Sixty-five  years' 
age  will  entitle  the  member  to  a  pension,  again  determined  by 
the  years  of  service  and  the  wage  received  during  the  working 
period. 

The  company  will  have  no  political  or  dogmatic  colour  what- 
ever, leaving  all  questions  of  politics,  like  those  of  religion,  to 
the  individual  conscience  of  its  members. 

It  will  always  respect  the  laws  of  the  state  in  which  it  is  obliged 
to  work,  and  will  avail  itself  of  their  advantages. 

It  will  admit  the  utmost  freedom  possible  in  matters  of  spirit- 
ual import. 

OUTLINE  OF  THE  ACTUAL  BUSINESS  WORKINGS  OF  THE  COMPANY 

The  company  will  be  divided  into  several  departments: 
General  Department  (banking,  administrative).    Under  the 
general  department  will  be  such  departments  as  bear  only  in- 
directly on  business,  as  departments  of  education,  of  hygienic 
supervision,  etc., 

Industrial  Department. 
Agricultural  Department. 
Real  Estate  Department. 
Distributive  and  Commercial  Department,  etc. 
General  Department.  —  Savings  bank  for  members  and  non- 
members.     Loans   of  personal   credit   to   members   only.    All 
speculating  finance  strictly  barred.     Net  profits  on  banking 
dividend  with  other  net  profits.     Insurance  of  life,  against  fire, 


APPENDIX  257 

invalidism,  etc.  General  direction,  coordinating  all  depart- 
ments. 

Industrial  Department.  —  Bakeries,  dairy  manufacturers,  fac- 
tories of  preserved  food,  etc.,  all  conveniently  placed  to  the 
sources  of  production  of  raw  material;  mills,  sugar,  factories, 
etc.;  shoes,  clothing,  etc.,  the  arts  and  crafts. 

Agricultural  Department.  —  Market  gardening  in  deserted 
tracts  in  the  neighbourhood  of  large  cities;  dairy  farms,  etc. 

Real  Estate  Department.  —  At  least  50  per  cent,  of  the 
initial  and  accumulating  capital  should  be  turned  into  real 
estate.  Land  or  habitation  given  to  members  on  short  lease, 
with  longer  terms  later  on,  after  capacity  shall  have  been  shown, 
so  that  the  property  will  become  practically  the  member's 
own  during  his  life,  and  after,  so  long  as  the  family  continues  to 
work  in  the  company;  or  should  the  member  desire  to  transfer 
within  the  company,  or  to  it  altogether,  his  leased  property 
would  be  practically  bought  back  from  him,  deducting  the  un- 
earned increment  and  the  initial  value  of  the  property,  but 
taking  into  consideration  such  improvements  as  he  may  have 
made. 

The  farms  will  be  limited  in  area  (to  fifty  acres,  for  example), 
and  will  be  united  with  cooperative  buildings  where  the  com- 
pany will  provide  the  fertilizer,  etc.,  at  wholesale  prices  and 
will  rent  out  the  machinery;  moreover,  dairy  manufactory  and 
canning  apparatus.  In  this  way  every  lease-holder  will  work 
independently,  but  with  the  facilities  and  economy  of  coopera- 
tion. 

Distributive  and  commercial  departments.  The  formation 
of  a  market  by  enterprising  business  methods;  careful  lists  of 
associates. 

Cooperative  stores,  to  operate  as  previously  specified.  The 
dividend-receiving  member  or  shareholder  who  is  also  a  pur- 
chaser at  the  cooperative  store  will  receive  the  rebate,  or  divi- 
dend, of  an  associate,  and  thus  will  receive  dividend  from  both 
ends  of  the  operation. 

The  commercial  department  will  purchase  wholesale  for  the 
needs  of  all  the  departments  of  the  business. 


258  APPENDIX 

FIRST  MEASURES   IN    LAUNCHING   THE   COMPANY 

Formation  of  a  Board  of  Trustees  of  high  standing  and  un- 
doubted honesty  and  popularity. 

Choice  of  a  very  capable  general  manager. 
Announcement  to  the  public  that  the  company: 

Goes  in  for  the  production  of  unadulterated  food  and  of 

articles  of  general  and  real  use  and  of  first-rate  quality. 
Is  based  on  the  principle  of  the  prevention  of  unemploy- 
ment and  mal-employment. 
Has  no  political  or  sectarian  colour  whatever. 
Aims  at  the  general  welfare  of  society. 
Demands  no  other  support  than  that  of  regular  customers. 


APPENDIX  II 

QUESTIONS 

At  the  close  of  Doctor  Van  Eeden's  address  at  Carnegie  Hall 
(see  Chapter  III,  Part  II)  questions  were  received  from  the 
audience  in  writing,  and  were  answered  as  follows: 

Question:  After  all,  is  not  communism  an  outworn  theory 
which  has  been  replaced  by  modern  socialism,  appealing  to 
political  methods?  The  trust  can  crush  communistic  settle- 
ments like  flies,  but  the  law  can  dispossess  even  a  trust. 

Van  Eeden:  You  are  welcome  to  call  communism  an  outworn 
theory  —  then  it  is  not  my  theory.  I  don't  know  what  you 
understand  by  communism.  Communism  as  I  describe  it  to 
you  is  not  an  outworn  theory.  A  public  library  is  not  an  out- 
worn theory,  nor  is  Yellowstone  Park.  "Which  has  been  re- 
placed by  modern  socialism."  Well,  replace  it  by  what  you 
like,  call  it  to-day  communism,  the  next  day  socialism.  "The 
trust  could  crush  communistic  settlements."  There  you  are! 
Colonies  again,  communistic  settlements  —  I  don't  want 
communistic  settlements.  I  want  large  organizations.  "The 
law  can  dispossess  even  a  trust. "  Quite  well,  but  then  the  men 
who  constitute  a  trust,  they  will  begin  anew;  they  are  not  the 
better  for  the  law.  The  law,  yes,  can  help  a  new  organization, 
but  never,  I  am  convinced,  can  it  run  counter  to  an  organization 
that  tries  to  do  right,  that  tries  to  work  in  a  just  and  equitable 
way,  that  tries  to  bring  about  a  peaceful  reorganization.  JMever, 
never  would  public  opinion  stand  for  that.  (Applause.)  At 
least,  not  in  my  country,  and  you  may  be  sure,  not  in  yours 
either.  Perhaps  in  Russia,  I  don't  know  about  that. 

Question:  It  has  been  stated  that  you  yourself  have  loaned  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  to  communistic  enterprises  in  Hol- 

259 


260  APPENDIX 

land.    Has  the  moral  sense  of  these  communists  ever  led  them 
to  repay  the  loan? 

Van  Eeden:  This  is  a  charming  question.  The  statement  is 
not  strictly  true.  I  have  not  loaned  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars —  I  have  loaned  it  until  eternity.  I  have  lost  it.  And  I 
don't  regret  it.  People  who  take  only  money  into  account  will 
say,  "There  is  so  much  money  gone  to  waste";  but  there  are 
people,  too,  who  will  tell  you  that  good  has  been  done;  and  I 
believe  that  there  are  such  people  here  too.  (Applause.) 
These  will  agree  that  I  have  gained  more  than  I  have  lost. 

As  for  the  moral  sense  of  these  communists,  who  spent  the 
money,  they  of  course  cannot  repay  it.  And  if  their  moral  sense 
was  not  sufficient  to  make  them  see  that  they  should  at  least 
try  to  repay  it,  as  it  was  not  in  some  of  them,  then  it  is  only  a 
warning,  when  you  begin  again,  to  choose  only  picked  men 
with  sufficient  moral  sense. 

Question':  You  are  an  artist,  Mr.  Van  Eeden.  Have  you 
found  that  in  Europe  socialism  tolerated  art?  And  is  not  art 
essentially  individualistic,  so  that  it  can  never  tolerate  socialism? 

Fan  Eeden:  I  utterly  disagree  with  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  this  question.  As  I  conceive  socialism,  it  will  mean  the  great 
reconstruction  of  art.  (Applause.)  An  organization,  such  a 
community  as  I  see  before  me,  will  give  the  artist  real  liberty 
to  devote  himself  to  his  art.  I  have  myself  the  feeling  that  art 
is  very  intimately  connected  with  socialism.  After  my  social 
experiments  I  have  gone  back  to  art,  because  I  still  consider  art 
as  the  greatest  power  in  regenerating  humanity.  (Apolause.) 

Question:  How  will  communism  dispose  of  wealth  as  it  stands 
in  America  to-day  and  do  justice  to  the  holders  of  it? 

Fan  Eeden:  Communism  will  not  dispose  of  wealth  by  sum- 
mary means.  At  least  not  communism  as  I  conceive  it.  Such 
wealth  as  communism  cannot  win  for  itself  by  just  means,  by 
honest  work,  it  will  leave  in  the  hands  of  individuals.  It  will 
accumulate  wealth  by  working  hands  and  working  brains,  and 
lay  that  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  better  community.  "And  do 
justice  to  the  holders  of  it?"  Well,  they  will  get  justice  quite 
by  themselves  —  they  will  get  it  without  any  effort  from  us. 


APPENDIX  261 

I  believe  that  justice  rules  the  world,  and  I  believe  that  the  man 
who  uses  his  wealth  rightfully  will  find  just  remuneration  in 
the  end. 

Questions:  (a)  Please  tell  us  your  position  on  woman  suf- 
frage, (b)  Would  it  be  possible  that  a  woman  should  be  the 
leader  of  your  Labour-Salvation  Army? 

Fan  Eeden:  Well,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  confess  that  I 
made  a  certain  blunder  on  first  reaching  this  country.  Coming 
for  the  first  time  into  contact  with  an  American  audience,  I 
found  that  they  were  very  fond  of  a  little  humour.  And  the 
first  time  that  I  spoke  to  an  American  audience  I  feared  that  I 
had  been  too  serious,  because  I  had  felt  serious;  and  the  second 
time  that  I  came  before  an  American  audience,  an  audience  of 
American  women,  I  tried  to  make  a  little  joke.  I  told  them 
that  perhaps  it  would  be  better  if  they  left  the  situation  as  it 
was,  because  they  ruled 'in  fact  where  the  men  were  said  to  rule. 
It  was  a  little  joke,  and  I  believe  that  most  of  the  audience 
understood  it  for  that.  But  some  of  your  newspapers  seemed 
to  be  very  serious  about  it.  They  called  me  stupid  —  an  ass. 
They  styled  me  an  ignoramus  because  I  didn't  want  votes  for 
the  women.  Now,  all  the  while  my  position  as  to  woman 
suffrage  is  absolutely  neutral.  (Laughter  and  applause.)  I 
wouldn't  have  the  impudence  to  influence  the  women  on  their 
own  question.  If  they  really  want  votes,  let  them  have  them  — 
why  not?  And  if  they  don't  want  them,  why  all  right.  Now, 
you  are  amused,  but  I  am  very  serious.  And  as  to  the  possi- 
bility of  a  woman  for  leader  of  such  a  great  cooperative  army 
as  I  speak  of  —  well,  it  may  be  possible.  I  doubt  it.  (Laugh- 
ter.) I  have  heard  here  of  women  who  have  great  business 
ability  and  are  great  business  leaders.  There  are  some  who 
have  not  yet  the  training  for  such  leadership.  At  any  rate  there 
may  be  also  in  such  a  great  community  a  department  for  the 
sake  of  women  and  their  work,  and  for  their  interests,  and  at 
the  head  of  such  a  department  must  be  a  woman,  I  am  quite 
sure  of  that. 

Question:  How  can  the  individual  employer  of  labour  put 
communistic  principles  into  practice? 


262  APPENDIX 

Fan  Efden:  According  to  my  idea,  individual  employers  who 
are  absolutely  serious,  and  are  devoted  to  the  whole  question, 
must  start  anew.  Such  an  employer  might  go  along  with  his 
own  concern  and  give  his  employees  everything  they  wanted, 
but  that  would  not  serve.  He  has  to  start  anew,  and  I  believe 
that  it  would  in  the  beginning  be  very  difficult  to  transform  an 
existing  concern  into  a  communistic  one.  And  from  my  own 
experience  I  believe  that  such  a  concern  will  grow  only  from 
small  beginnings,  like  a  seed,  and  that  afterward  it  will  absorb 
the  existing  concerns,  and  that  by  no  means  could  you  begin 
right  off  to  change  the  existing  concerns  to  communistic  enter- 
prises. 

Question:  In  your  comparison  to  the  bee-life  you  fail  to 
mention  the  custom  of  killing  the  drones.  Shall  we  do  likewise 
to  solve  the  problem  of  providing  sufficient  bread? 

Van  Eeden:  I  am  inclined  to  take  this  as  a  joke.  But  it  gives 
me  the  opportunity  of  saying  one  thing:  that  we  must  in  a  way 
be  cruel  to  be  kind.  That  is  what  I  have  learned  after  hard 
experience.  I  have  been  too  kind,  too  meek,  too  tender,  and  I 
have  paid  for  it  dearly.  And  just  as  a  clever  surgeon  will  be 
cruel  often  when  his  patient  is  suffering,  so  must  we,  too,  in  a 
way,  be  cruel  in  order  to  start  a  new  community.  We  must  not 
expect  communistic  communities  to  be  started  with  weak  men. 
We  must  begin  with  strong  men,  and  only  later  take  in  the  weaker 
persons.  We  must  be  very  severe  in  the  beginning.  And  the 
lack  of  this  severity  I  consider  the  reason  for  the  failure  of  most 
of  those  experiments  which  have  regarded  socialism  as  merely 
a  too-great  kindness  and  tenderness.  And  this  teaches  that, 
for  hard  and  cruel  diseases,  hard  and  cruel  measures  are  sometimes 
necessary. 

Question:  How  is  the  organization  you  speak  of  to  go  to 
work? 

Van  Eeden:  I  would  gladly  keep  you  here  all  night,  but  of 
course  I  have  my  thoughts  and  schemes  which  I  cannot  give  you 
here  in  detail.  It  would  be  nonsense,  for  I  have  been  only  five 
days  in  this  country,  and  how  can  I  judge  of  local  conditions? 
No,  I  will  throw  out  some  germs,  and  when  there  is  a  response, 


APPENDIX  263 

then,  in  some  small  company,  I  will  explain  as  much  as  I  can. 
But  here  everybody  would  say  "Impossible";  everybody  would 
say,  "You  can  do  that  on  the  other  side  but  not  here."  I  want, 
first,  men  who  are  willing.  The  scheme  must  be  a  cooperation, 
and  embrace  as  many  trades  and  businesses  as  possible;  it  must 
have  a  general  department  for  banking,  and  it  must  have  an 
agricultural,  an  industrial,  a  real-estate  department,  a  depart- 
ment for  distribution  and  commerce.  This  is  only  a  brief  sum- 
mary, a  very  general  idea.  You  can  readily  understand  that, 
before  a  large  audience  such  as  this,  I  can  give  only  hints,  not 
details. 

Question:  How  many  members  are  there  now  in  your 
socialist  community?  How  many  have  deserted?  In  what 
industries  are  they  chiefly  engaged?  Do  they  accumulate 
wealth,  and  if  so,  what  becomes  of  it?  How  many  of 
them  are  married?  -Are  they  strong  characters,  or  mere 
followers,  uneducated,  and  not  capable  of  taking  care  of 
themselves? 

Van  Eeden:  Well,  I  dare  say  that  to  answer  this  question 
now  would  put  me  in  the  way  of  being  misunderstood  by  you. 
The  facts  are  rather  complicated.  I  have  given  a  description 
of  my  experiments,  in  The  Independent,  and  I  hope  to  give  still 
further  explanations.  But  to  answer  these  questions  now  I 
do  not  believe  would  be  very  useful.  For  instance,  "How  many 
members  are  there?"  Well,  there  is  only  the  beginning  of  an 
organization,  and  this  has  had  bankruptcy  and  has  now  started 
anew.  These  experiments  are  only  in  their  infancy,  and  a 
bankruptcy  under  such  circumstances  is  like  the  coming  down 
of  an  airship.  We  know  now  what  has  caused  the  first 
failures,  and  are  prepared  to  go  ahead  in  a  better-instructed 
way. 

The  industries  that  I  started  were  a  bakery,  a  candy  manu- 
factory, market  gardening,  a  farm,  a  distributive  branch  in 
Amsterdam,  and  all  were  to  form  one  great  organization.  For 
the  moment  the  enterprise  is  very  weak  and  young,  because  we 
have  not  yet  accumulated  any  notable  wealth.  We  have  only 
liabilities. 


264  APPENDIX 

Question:  Why  do  you  come  to  America?  Do  you  believe 
that  any  form  of  communism  would  settle  our  problem  of  the 
unemployed  here  and  now? 

Van  Eeden:  This  is  a  very  serious  question.  No,  I  have  told 
you  already  that  no  form  of  communism  would  settle  anything 
here  and  now.  But  it  is  the  only  attempt  that  we  can  make, 
as  far  as  I  can  see.  It  is  the  only  way  we  can  go  to  work  to 
change  the  present  conditions  of  society.  You  know  some  of 
your  best  men  have  said,  "God  knows,  I  don't."  I  know  quite 
well  that  communism  won't  succeed  right  now.  It  will  succeed 
only  after  long  years  of  difficulty  and  hardship,  and  there  must 
be  fought  a  fight  against  despotism,  and  I  have  come  to  America 
because  I  know  that  this  country  is  inclined  to  fight  against 
despotism.  And  you  are  in  the  same  straits  as  we.  We  fought 
one  big  tyrant  and  we  got  a  hundred  small  ones  instead.  You 
fought  a  tyrant  many  years  ago,  and  you  have  gotten  many 
hundreds  of  big  ones  instead.  I  know  you  will  fight  these  hun- 
dreds on  their  own  ground,  and  along  their  own  lines,  if  only  you 
know  how,  and  that  is  what  I  want  to  show  you.  I  want  you 
to  understand  my  true  motive.  When  a  man  has  undergone 
in  his  life  more  hardships,  more  difficulties  than  he 
intended  to,  then  he  feels,  "I  want  something  to  make  up 
for  that."  And  that  is  my  motive  here.  I  have  undergone 
suffering  over  in  my  own  country,  and  I  will  be  consoled^ 
and  glad  and  contented,  and  regard  it  as  nothing,  if  only  I 
can  make  this  hardship  fruitful  and  useful  for  humanity.  It 
is  for  that  reason  that  I  have  come  here.  Could  I  know 
that  my  words  would  grow  like  germs  here  in  this  country,  I 
would  gladly  return  home  and  you  would  never  see  anything 
more  of  me. 

I  have  come,  in  fact  (and  let  me  say  it  to  you,  for  I  believe 
that  you  will  believe  me),  I  have  come  for  God's  sake.  I  have 
felt  that  there  is  only  one  activity  that  satisfies,  only  one  activ- 
ity that  gives  real  rest  and  contentment;  and  that  activity  is  not 
what  we  do  for  ourselves,  not  what  we  do  for  any  material  pur- 
pose, and  not  what  we  do  even  for  humanity,  but  what  we  do 
for  God.  And  I  know  there  is  something  of  that  feeling  in  you, 


APPENDIX  265 

too,  for  I  have  seen  it.  So  once  more  I  beseech  you,  I  entreat 
you.  let  not  my  words  be  an  empty  wind  to  you,  and  when  you 
go  home,  do  not  say,  "Very  curious,  how  nice,  how  interesting!" 
but  let  my  words  turn  you  to  action,  and  let  that  be  not  for  my 
sake,  not  for  the  sake  of  yourselves,  but  for  the  sake  of  God. 
I  thank  you. 


THE    END 


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